The Angel's Game

1

I celebrated my return to the world of the living by paying homage to one of the most influential temples in town: the main offices of the Banco Hispano Colonial on Calle Fontanella. The sight of a hundred thousand francs sent the manager, the auditors and the army of cashiers and accountants into ecstasy, and elevated me to the ranks of clients who inspired a devotion and warmth that was almost saintly. Having sorted out formalities with the bank, I decided to deal with another Horseman of the Apocalypse by walking up to a newspaper stand in Plaza Urquinaona. I opened a copy of The Voice of Industry and looked for the local news section, which had once been mine. Don Basilio’s expert touch was still apparent in the headlines and I recognised almost all of the bylines, as if not a day had gone by. Six years of General Primo de Rivera’s lukewarm dictatorship had brought to the city a poisonous, murky calm that didn’t sit well with the reporting of crime and sensational stories. I was about to close the newspaper and collect my change when I saw it. Just a brief news item in a column highlighting four different incidents, on the last page of the section.

MIDNIGHT FIRE IN THE RAVAL QUARTER ONE DEAD AND TWO BADLY INJURED

Joan Marc Huguet/Barcelona

A serious fire started in the early hours of Friday morning at 6, Plaza dels Àngels, head office of the publishing firm Barrido & Escobillas. The firm’s director, Don José Barrido, died in the blaze, and his partner, Don José Luis López Escobillas, was seriously injured. An employee, Don Ramón Guzmán, was also badly injured, trapped by the flames as he attempted to rescue the other two men. Firefighters are speculating that the blaze may have been started by a chemical product that was being used for renovation work in the offices. Other causes are not being ruled out, however, as eyewitnesses claim to have seen a man leaving the building moments before the fire began. The victims were taken to the Clínico hospital, where one was pronounced dead on arrival. The other two remain in a critical condition.

I got there as quickly as I could. The smell of burning reached as far as the Ramblas. A group of neighbours and onlookers had congregated in the square opposite the building, and plumes of white smoke rose from the rubble by the entrance. I saw some of the firm’s employees trying to salvage what little remained from the ruins. Boxes of scorched books and furniture bitten by flames were piled up in the street. The facade of the building was blackened and the windows had been blasted out by the fire. I broke through the circle of bystanders and went in. A powerful stench stuck in my throat. Some of the staff from the publishing house who were busy rescuing their belongings recognised me and mumbled a greeting, their heads bowed.

‘Señor Martín… what a tragedy.’

I crossed what had once been the reception and went into Barrido’s office. The flames had devoured the carpets and reduced the furniture to glowing skeletons. In one corner, the coffered ceiling had collapsed, opening a pathway of light towards the rear patio along which floated a bright beam of ashes. One chair had miraculously survived the fire. It was in the middle of the room and sitting on it was Lady Venom, crying, her eyes downcast. I knelt down in front of her. She recognised me and smiled between her tears.

‘Are you all right?’ I asked.

She nodded.

‘He told me to go home, you know? He said it was late and I should get some rest because today was going to be a very long day. We were finishing the monthly accounts… If I’d stayed another minute…’

‘What happened, Herminia?’

‘We were working late. It was almost midnight when Señor Barrido told me to go home. The publishers were expecting a gentleman…’

‘At midnight? Which gentleman?’

‘A foreigner, I think. It had something to do with a proposal. I’m not sure. I would happily have stayed on, but Señor Barrido told me-’

‘Herminia, that gentleman, do you remember his name?’

She gave me a puzzled look.

‘I’ve already told the inspector who came here this morning everything I can remember. He asked for you.’

‘An inspector? For me?’

‘They’re talking to everyone.’

‘Of course.’

Lady Venom looked straight at me, eying me with distrust, as if she were trying to read my thoughts.

‘They don’t know whether he’ll come out of this alive,’ she murmured, referring to Escobillas. ‘We’ve lost everything, the archives, the contracts… everything. The publishing house is finished.’

‘I’m sorry, Herminia.’

A crooked, malicious smile appeared.

‘You’re sorry? Isn’t this what you wanted?’

‘How can you think that?’

She looked at me suspiciously.

‘Now you’re free.’

I was about to touch her arm but Herminia stood up and took a step back, as if my presence scared her.

‘Herminia-’

‘Go away,’ she said.

I left Herminia among the smoking ruins. When I went back outside I bumped into a group of children rummaging through the rubble. One of them had disinterred a book from the ashes and was examining it with a mixture of curiosity and disdain. The cover had been disfigured by the fire and the edges of the pages were charred, but otherwise the book was unspoilt. From the lettering on the spine, I knew that it was one of the instalments of City of the Damned.

‘Señor Martín?’

I turned to find three men wearing cheap suits that were at odds with the humid, sticky air. One of them, who seemed to be in charge, stepped forward and proffered me the friendly smile of an expert salesman. The other two, who seemed as rigid and unyielding as a hydraulic press, glued their openly hostile eyes on mine.

‘Señor Martín, I’m Inspector Víctor Grandes and these are my colleagues Officers Marcos and Castelo from the investigation and security squad. I wonder if you would be kind enough to spare us a few minutes.’

‘Of course,’ I replied.

The name Víctor Grandes rang a bell from my days as a reporter. Vidal had devoted some of his columns to him, and I particularly recalled one in which he described Grandes as a revelation, a solid figure whose presence in the squad confirmed the arrival of a new generation of elite professionals, better prepared than their predecessors, incorruptible and tough as steel. The adjectives and the hyperbole were Vidal’s, not mine. I imagined that Inspector Grandes would have moved up the ranks since then, and his presence was proof that the police were taking the fire at Barrido & Escobillas seriously.

‘If you don’t mind we can go to a nearby café so that we can talk undisturbed,’ said Grandes, his obliging smile not diminishing one inch.

‘As you wish.’

Grandes took me to a small bar on the corner of Calle Doctor Dou and Calle Pintor Fortuny. Marcos and Castelo walked behind us, never taking their eyes off me. Grandes offered me a cigarette, which I refused. He put the packet back in his pocket and didn’t open his mouth again until we reached the café and I was escorted to a table at the back, where the three men positioned themselves around me. Had they taken me to a dark, damp dungeon the meeting would have seemed more friendly.

‘Señor Martín, you must already know what happened early this morning.’

‘Only what I’ve read in the paper. And what Lady Venom told me…’

‘Lady Venom?’

‘I’m sorry. Miss Herminia Duaso, the directors’ assistant.’

Marcos and Castelo exchanged glances that were priceless. Grandes smiled.

‘Interesting nickname. Tell me, Señor Martín, where were you last night?’

How naive of me; the question caught me by surprise.

‘It’s a routine question,’ Grandes explained. ‘We’re trying to establish the whereabouts of anyone who might have been in touch with the victims during the last few days. Employees, suppliers, family…’

‘I was with a friend.’

As soon as I opened my mouth I regretted my choice of words. Grandes noticed it.

‘A friend?’

‘Well he’s really someone connected to my work. A publisher. Last night I’d arranged a meeting with him.’

‘Can you tell me until what time you were with this person?’

‘Until late. In fact, I ended up sleeping at his house.’

‘I see. And this person you describe as being connected to your work, what is his name?’

‘Corelli. Andreas Corelli. A French publisher.’

Grandes wrote the name down in a little notebook.

‘The surname sounds Italian,’ he remarked.

‘As a matter of fact, I don’t really know what his nationality is.’

‘That’s understandable. And this Señor Corelli, whatever his citizenship may be, would he be able to corroborate the fact that last night you were with him?’

I shrugged my shoulders.

‘I suppose so.’

‘You suppose so?’

‘I’m sure he would. Why wouldn’t he?’

‘I don’t know, Señor Martín. Is there any reason why you would think he might not?’

‘No.’

‘That’s settled then.’

Marcos and Castelo were looking at me as if I’d done nothing but tell lies since we sat down.

‘One last thing. Could you explain the nature of the meeting you had last night with this publisher of indeterminate nationality?’

‘Señor Corelli had arranged to meet me because he wanted to make me an offer.’

‘What type of offer?’

‘A professional one.’

‘I see. To write a book, perhaps?’

‘Exactly.’

‘Tell me, is it usual after a business meeting to spend the night in the house of, how shall I put it, the contracting party?’

‘No.’

‘But you say you spent the night in this publisher’s house.’

‘I stayed because I wasn’t feeling well and I didn’t think I’d be able to get back to my house.’

‘The dinner upset you, perhaps?’

‘I’ve had some health problems recently.’

Grandes nodded, looking duly concerned.

‘Dizzy spells, headaches…’ I added.

‘But it’s reasonable to assume that now you’re feeling better?’

‘Yes. Much better.’

‘I’m glad to hear it. In fact, you’re looking enviably well. Don’t you agree?’

Castelo and Marcos nodded.

‘Anyone would think you’ve had a great weight taken off your shoulders,’ the inspector pointed out.

‘I don’t understand.’

‘I’m talking about the dizzy spells and the aches and pains.’

Grandes was handling this farce with an exasperating sense of timing.

‘Forgive my ignorance regarding your professional life, Señor Martín, but isn’t it true that you signed an agreement with the two publishers that didn’t expire for another six years?’

‘Five.’

‘And didn’t this agreement tie you, so to speak, exclusively to Barrido & Escobillas?’

‘Those were the terms.’

‘Then why would you need to discuss an offer with a competitor if your agreement didn’t allow you to accept it?’

‘It was just a conversation. Nothing more.’

‘Which nevertheless turned into a soirée at this gentleman’s house.’

‘My agreement doesn’t forbid me to speak to third parties. Or spend the night away from home. I’m free to sleep wherever I wish and to speak to whomever I want.’

‘Of course. I wasn’t trying to imply that you weren’t, but thank you for clarifying that point.’

‘Can I clarify anything else?’

‘Just one small detail. Now that Señor Barrido has passed away, and supposing that, God forbid, Señor Escobillas does not recover from his injuries and also dies, the publishing house would be dissolved and so would your contract. Am I wrong?’

‘I’m not sure. I don’t really know how the company was set up.’

‘But would you say that it was likely?’

‘Possibly. You’d have to ask the publishers’ lawyer.’

‘In fact, I already have. And he has confirmed that, if what nobody wants to happen does happen and Señor Escobillas passes away, that is exactly how things will stand.’

‘Then you already have the answer.’

‘And you would have complete freedom to accept the offer of Señor…’

‘Corelli.’

‘Tell me, have you accepted it already?’

‘May I ask what this has to do with the cause of the fire?’ I snapped.

‘Nothing. Simple curiosity.’

‘Is that all?’ I asked.

Grandes looked at his colleagues and then at me.

‘As far as I’m concerned, yes.’

I made as if to stand up, but the three policemen remained glued to their seats.

‘Señor Martín, before I forget,’ said Grandes. ‘Can you confirm whether you remember that a week ago Señor Barrido and Señor Escobillas paid you a visit at your home, at number 30, Calle Flassaders, in the company of the aforementioned lawyer?’

‘They did.’

‘Was it a social or a courtesy call?’

‘The publishers came to express their wish that I should return to my work on a series of books I’d put aside for a few months while I devoted myself to another project.’

‘Would you describe the conversation as friendly and relaxed?’

‘I don’t remember anyone raising his voice.’

‘And do you remember replying to them, and I quote, “In a week you and that idiot partner of yours will be dead”? Without raising your voice, of course.’

I sighed.

‘Yes,’ I admitted.

‘What were you referring to?’

‘I was angry and said the first thing that came into my head, inspector. That doesn’t mean that I was serious. Sometimes one says things one doesn’t mean.’

‘Thank you for your candour, Señor Martín. You have been very helpful. Good afternoon.’

I walked away from that place with all three sets of eyes fixed like daggers on my back, and with the firm belief that if I’d replied to every one of the inspector’s questions with a lie I wouldn’t have felt as guilty.

2

The meeting with Víctor Grandes and the couple of basilisks he used as escorts left a nasty taste in my mouth, but it had gone by the time I’d walked in the sun for a hundred metres or so, in a body I hardly recognised: strong, free of pain and nausea, with no ringing in my ears or agonising pinpricks in my skull, no weariness or cold sweats. No recollection of that certainty of death that had suffocated me only twenty-four hours ago. Something told me that the tragedy of the previous night, including the death of Barrido and the very likely demise of Escobillas, should have filled me with grief and anguish, but neither I nor my conscience was able to feel anything other than a pleasant indifference. That July morning, the Ramblas were in party mood and I was their prince.

I took a stroll as far as Calle Santa Ana, with the idea of paying a surprise visit to Señor Sempere. When I walked into the bookshop, Sempere senior was behind the counter settling accounts; his son had climbed a ladder and was rearranging the bookshelves. The bookseller gave me a friendly smile and I realised that for a moment he hadn’t recognised me. A second later his smile disappeared, his mouth dropped and he came round the counter to embrace me.

‘Martín? Is it really you? Holy Mother of God… you look completely different! I was so worried. We went round to your house a few times, but you didn’t answer the door. I’ve even been to the hospitals and police stations.’

His son stared at me in disbelief from the top of the ladder. I had to remind myself that only a week before they had seen me looking like one of the inmates of the local morgue.

‘I’m sorry I gave you a fright. I was away for a few days on a work-related matter.’

‘But you did listen to me and go to the doctor, didn’t you?’

I nodded.

‘It turned out to be something very minor, to do with my blood pressure. I took a tonic for a few days and now I’m as good as new.’

‘Give me the name of the tonic – I might take a shower in it… What a joy it is, and a relief, to see you looking so well!’

These high spirits were soon punctured when he turned to the news of the day.

‘Did you hear about Barrido and Escobillas?’ he asked.

‘I’ve just come from there. It’s hard to believe.’

‘Who would have imagined it? It’s not as if they aroused any warm feelings in me, but this… And tell me, from a legal point of view, how does it all leave you? I don’t mean to sound crude.’

‘To tell you the truth, I don’t know. I think the two partners owned the company. There must be heirs, I suppose, but it’s conceivable that, if they both die, the company as such will cease to exist. And, with it, any agreement I had with them. Or at least that’s what I think.’

‘In other words, if Escobillas, may God forgive me, kicks the bucket too, then you’re a free man.’

I nodded.

‘What a dilemma…’ mumbled the bookseller.

‘What will be will be…’ I said.

Sempere nodded, but I noticed that something was bothering him and he wanted to change the subject.

‘Anyway. The thing is, it’s wonderful that you’ve dropped by because I wanted to ask you a favour.’

‘Say no more: it’s already done.’

‘I warn you, you’re not going to like it.’

‘If I liked it, it wouldn’t be a favour, it would be a pleasure. And if the favour is for you, it will be.’

‘It’s not really for me. I’ll explain and you decide. No obligation, all right?’

Sempere leaned on the counter and adopted his confidential manner, bringing back childhood memories of times I had spent in that shop.

‘There’s this young girl, Isabella. She must be seventeen. As bright as a button. She’s always coming round here and I lend her books. She tells me she wants to be a writer.’

‘Sounds familiar.’

‘The thing is, a week ago she left one of her stories with me – just twenty or thirty pages, that’s all – and asked for my opinion.’

‘And?’

Sempere lowered his tone, as if he were revealing a secret from an official inquiry.

‘Masterly. Better than 99 per cent of what I’ve seen published in the last twenty years.’

‘I hope you are including me in the remaining one per cent or I’ll consider my self-esteem well and truly trodden on.’

‘That’s just what I was coming to. Isabella adores you.’

‘She adores me?’

‘Yes, as if you were the Virgin of Montserrat and the Baby Jesus all in one. She’s read the whole City of the Damned series ten times over, and when I lent her The Steps of Heaven she told me that if she could write a book like that she’d die a peaceful death.’

‘You were right. I don’t like the sound of this.’

‘I knew you’d try to wriggle out of it.’

‘I’m not wriggling out. You haven’t told me what the favour is.’

‘You can imagine.’

I sighed. Sempere clicked his tongue.

‘I warned you.’

‘Ask me something else.’

‘All you have to do is talk to her. Give her some encouragement, some advice… Listen to her, read some of her stuff and give her a little guidance. The girl has a mind as quick as a bullet. You’re really going to like her. You’ll become friends. She could even work as your assistant.’

‘I don’t need an assistant. Still less someone I don’t know.’

‘Nonsense. Besides, you do know her. Or at least that’s what she says. She says she’s known you for years, but you probably don’t remember her. It seems that the couple of simple souls she has for parents are convinced that this literature business will consign her to eternal damnation, or at least to a secular spinsterhood. They’re wavering between locking her up in a convent or marrying her off to some jerk who will give her eight children and bury her forever among pots and pans. If you do nothing to save her, it’s tantamount to murder.’

‘Don’t pull a Jane Eyre on me, Señor Sempere.’

‘Look. I wouldn’t ask you, because I know that you’re as much of a fan of this altruism stuff as you are of dancing sardanas, but every time I see her come in here and look at me with those little eyes that seem to be popping with intelligence and enthusiasm, I think of the future that awaits her and it breaks my heart. I’ve already taught her all I can. The girl learns fast, Martín. She reminds me of you when you were a young lad.’

I sighed.

‘Isabella what?’

‘Gispert. Isabella Gispert.’

‘I don’t know her. I’ve never heard that name in my life. Someone’s been telling you a tall story.’

The bookseller shook his head and mumbled under his breath. ‘That’s exactly what Isabella said you’d say.’

‘So, she’s talented and she’s psychic. What else did she say?’

‘She suspects you’re a much better writer than a person.’

‘What an angel, this Isabelita.’

‘Can I tell her to come and see you? No obligation?’

I gave in. Sempere smiled triumphantly and wanted to seal the pact with an embrace, but I escaped before the old bookseller was able to complete his mission of trying to make me feel like a good Samaritan.

‘You won’t be sorry, Martín,’ I heard him say as I walked out of the door.

3

When I got home, Inspector Víctor Grandes was sitting on the front doorstep, calmly smoking a cigarette. With the poise of a matinee star he smiled when he saw me, as if he were an old friend on a courtesy call. I sat down next to him and he pulled out his cigarette case. Gitanes, I noticed. I accepted.

‘Where are Hansel and Gretel?’

‘Marcos and Castelo were unable to come. We had a tip-off, so they’ve gone to find an old acquaintance in Pueblo Seco who is probably in need of a little persuasion to jog his memory.’

‘Poor devil.’

‘If I’d told them I was coming here, they would probably have joined me. They think the world of you.’

‘Love at first sight, I noticed. What can I do for you, inspector? May I invite you upstairs for a cup of coffee?’

‘I wouldn’t dare invade your privacy, Señor Martín. In fact, I simply wanted to give you the news personally before you found out from other sources.’

‘What news?’

‘Escobillas passed away early this afternoon in the Clínico hospital.’

‘God. I didn’t know,’ I said.

Grandes shrugged his shoulders and continued smoking in silence.

‘I could see it coming. Nothing anyone could do about it.’

‘Have you discovered anything about the cause of the fire?’ I asked.

The inspector looked at me, then nodded.

‘Everything seems to indicate that somebody spilled petrol over Señor Barrido and then set fire to him. The flames spread when he panicked and tried to get out of his office. His partner and the other employee who rushed over to help him were trapped.’

I swallowed hard. Grandes smiled reassuringly.

‘The publishers’ lawyer was saying this afternoon that, given the personal nature of your agreement, it becomes null and void with the death of the publishers, although their heirs will retain the rights on all the works published until now. I suppose he’ll write to you, but I thought you might like to know in advance, in case you need to take any decision concerning the offer from the other publisher you mentioned.’

‘Thank you.’

‘You’re welcome.’

Grandes had a last puff of his cigarette and threw the butt on the ground. He smiled affably and stood up. Then he patted me on the shoulder and walked off towards Calle Princesa.

‘Inspector?’ I called.

Grandes stopped and turned round.

‘You don’t think that…’

Grandes gave a weary smile.

‘Take care, Martín.’

I went to bed early and woke all of a sudden thinking it was the following day, only to discover that it was just after midnight.

In my dreams I had seen Barrido and Escobillas trapped in their office. The flames crept up their clothes until every inch of their bodies was covered. First their clothes, then their skin began to fall off in strips, and their panic-stricken eyes cracked in the heat. Their bodies shook in spasms of agony until they collapsed among the rubble. Flesh peeled off their bones like melted wax, forming a smoking puddle at my feet, in which I could see my own smiling reflection as I blew out the match I held in my fingers.

I got up to fetch a glass of water and, assuming I’d missed the train to sleep, I went up to the study, opened the drawer in my desk and pulled out the book I had rescued from the Cemetery of Forgotten Books. I turned on the reading lamp and twisted its flexible arm so that it focused directly on the book. I opened it at the first page and began to read:

Lux Aeterna

D. M.

At first glance, the book was a collection of texts and prayers that seemed to make no sense. It was a manuscript, a handful of typed pages bound rather carelessly in leather. I went on reading and after a while thought I sensed some sort of method in the sequence of events, songs and meditations that punctuated the main body of the text. The language possessed its own cadence and what had at first seemed like a complete absence of form or style gradually turned into a hypnotic chant that permeated the reader’s mind, plunging him into a state somewhere between drowsiness and forgetfulness. The same thing happened with the content, whereby the central theme did not become apparent until well into the first section, or chant – for the work seemed to be structured in the manner of ancient poems written in an age when time and space proceeded at their own pace. I realised then that Lux Aeterna was, for want of a better description, a sort of book of the dead.

After reading the first thirty or forty pages of circumlocutions and riddles, I found myself caught up in a precise, extravagant and increasingly disturbing puzzle of prayers and entreaties, in which death, referred to at times – in awkwardly constructed verses – as a white angel with reptilian eyes, and at other times as a luminous boy, was presented as a sole and omnipresent deity, made manifest in nature, desire and in the fragility of existence.

Whoever the mysterious D. M. was, death hovered over his verses like an all-consuming and eternal force. A Byzantine tangle of references to various mythologies of heaven and hell were knotted together here into a single plane. According to D. M. there was only one beginning and one end, only one creator and one destroyer who presented himself under different names to confuse men and tempt them in their weakness, a sole God whose true face was divided into two halves: one sweet and pious, the other cruel and demonic.

That much I was able to deduce, but no more, because beyond those principles the author seemed to have lost the course of his narrative and it was almost impossible to decipher the prophetic references and images that peppered the text. Storms of blood and fire pouring over cities and peoples. Armies of corpses in uniform running across endless plains, destroying all life as they passed. Babies strung up with torn flags at the gates of fortresses. Black seas where thousands of souls in torment were suspended for all eternity beneath icy, poisoned waters. Clouds of ashes and oceans of bones and rotten flesh infested with insects and snakes. The succession of hellish, nauseating images went on unabated.

As I turned the pages I had the feeling that, step by step, I was following the map of a sick and broken mind. Line after line, the author of those pages had, without being aware of it, documented his own descent into a chasm of madness. The last third of the book seemed to suggest an attempt at retracing his steps, a desperate cry from the prison of his insanity so that he might escape the labyrinth of tunnels that had formed in his mind. The text ended suddenly, midway through an imploring sentence, offering no explanation.

By this time my eyelids were beginning to close. A light breeze wafted through the window. It came from the sea, sweeping the mist off the rooftops. I was about to close the book when I realised that something was trapped in my mind’s filter, something connected to the type on those pages. I returned to the beginning and started to go over the text. I found the first example on the fifth line. From then on the same mark appeared every two or three lines. One of the characters, the capital S, was always slightly tilted to the right. I took a blank page from the drawer, slipped it behind the roller of the Underwood typewriter on my desk and wrote a sentence at random:

‘Sometimes I hear the bells of Santa María del Mar.’

I pulled out the paper and examined it under the lamp.

‘Sometimes…of Santa María…’

I sighed. Lux Aeterna had been written on that very same typewriter and probably, I imagined, at that same desk.

4

The following morning I went out to have my breakfast in a café opposite Santa María del Mar. The Borne district was heaving with carts and people going to the market, with shopkeepers and wholesalers opening their stores. I sat at one of the outdoor tables, asked for a café con leche and adopted an orphaned copy of La Vanguardia that was lying on the next table. While my eyes slid over the headlines and leads, I noticed a figure walking up the steps to the church door and sitting down at the top to observe me on the sly. The girl must have been about sixteen or seventeen and was pretending to write things down in a notebook while she stole glances at me surreptitiously. I sipped my coffee calmly. After a while I beckoned to the waiter.

‘Do you see that young lady sitting by the church door? Tell her to order whatever she likes. It’s on me.’

The waiter nodded and went up to her. When she saw him approaching she buried her head in her notebook, assuming an expression of total concentration that made me smile. The waiter stopped in front of her and cleared his throat. She looked up from her notebook and stared at him. He explained what his mission was and then pointed in my direction. The girl looked at me in alarm. I waved at her. She went crimson. She stood up and came over to my table, with short steps, her eyes fixed firmly on the ground.

‘Isabella?’ I asked.

The girl looked up and sighed, annoyed at herself.

‘How did you know?’ she asked.

‘Supernatural intuition,’ I replied.

She held out her hand and I shook it without much enthusiasm.

‘May I sit down?’ she asked.

She sat down without waiting for a reply. In the next half a minute the girl changed her position about six times until she returned to the original one. I observed her with a calculated lack of interest.

‘You don’t remember me, do you, Señor Martín?’

‘Should I?’

‘For years I delivered your weekly order from Can Gispert.’

The image of the girl who for so long had brought my food from the grocer’s came into my mind, then dissolved into the more adult and slightly more angular features of this Isabella, a woman of soft shapes and steely eyes.

‘The little girl I used to tip,’ I said, although there was little or nothing left of the girl in her.

Isabella nodded.

‘I always wondered what you did with all those coins.’

‘I bought books at Sempere & Sons.’

‘If only I’d known…’

‘I’ll go if I’m bothering you.’

‘You’re not bothering me. Would you like something to drink?’

The girl shook her head.

‘Señor Sempere tells me you’re talented.’

Isabella shrugged her shoulders and smiled at me sceptically.

‘Normally, the more talent one has, the more one doubts it,’ I said. ‘And vice versa.’

‘Then I must be quite something,’ Isabella replied.

‘Welcome to the club. Tell me, what can I do for you?’

Isabella took a deep breath.

‘Señor Sempere told me that perhaps you could read some of my work and give me your opinion and some advice.’

I fixed my eyes on hers for a few seconds before replying. She held my gaze without blinking.

‘Is that all?’

‘No.’

‘I could see it coming. What is chapter two?’

Isabella hesitated only for a split second.

‘If you like what you read and you think I have potential, I’d like you to allow me to become your assistant.’

‘What makes you think I need an assistant?’

‘I can tidy up your papers, type them, correct errors and mistakes…’

‘Errors and mistakes?’

‘I didn’t mean to imply that you make mistakes…’

‘Then what did you mean to imply?’

‘Nothing. But four eyes are always better than two. And besides, I can take care of your correspondence, run errands, help with research. What’s more, I know how to cook and I can-’

‘Are you asking for a post as assistant or cook?’

‘I’m asking you to give me a chance.’

Isabella looked down. I couldn’t help but smile. Despite myself, I really liked this curious creature.

‘This is what we’ll do. Bring me the best twenty pages you’ve written, the ones you think will show me what you are capable of. Don’t bring any more because I won’t read them. I’ll have a good look at them and then, depending on what I think, we’ll talk.’

Her face lit up and, for a moment, the veil of tension and toughness that governed her expression disappeared.

‘You won’t regret it,’ she said.

She stood up and looked at me nervously.

‘Is it all right if I bring the pages round to your house?’

‘Leave them in my letter box. Is that all?’

She nodded vigorously and backed away with those short, nervous steps. When she was about to turn and start running, I called her.

‘Isabella?’

She looked at me meekly, her eyes clouded with sudden anxiety.

‘Why me?’ I asked. ‘And don’t tell me it’s because I’m your favourite author or any of that sort of flattery with which Sempere has advised you to soft-soap me, because if you do, this will be the first and last conversation we ever have.’

Isabella hesitated for a moment. Then, looking at me candidly, she replied with disarming bluntness.

‘Because you’re the only writer I know.’

She gave me an embarrassed smile and went off with her notebook, her unsteady walk and her frankness. I watched her turn the corner of Calle Mirallers and vanish behind the cathedral.

5

When I returned home an hour later, I found her sitting on my doorstep, clutching what I imagined must be her story. As soon as she saw me she stood up and forced a smile.

‘I told you to leave it in my letter box,’ I said.

Isabella nodded and shrugged her shoulders.

‘As a token of my gratitude I’ve brought you some coffee from my parents’ shop. It’s Colombian and really good. The coffee didn’t fit through your letter box so I thought I’d better wait for you.’

Such an excuse could only have been invented by a budding novelist. I sighed and opened the door.

‘In.’

I went up the stairs, Isabella following like a lapdog a few steps behind.

‘Do you always take that long to have your breakfast? Not that it’s any of my business, of course, but I’ve been waiting here for three quarters of an hour, so I was beginning to worry. I said to myself, I hope he hasn’t choked on something. It would be just my luck. The one time I meet a writer in the flesh and then he goes and swallows an olive the wrong way and bang goes my literary career,’ she rattled on.

I stopped halfway up the flight of steps and looked at her with the most hostile expression I could muster.

‘Isabella, for things to work out between us we’re going to have to set down a few rules. The first is that I ask the questions and you just answer them. When there are no questions from me, you don’t give me answers or spontaneous speeches. The second rule is that I can take as long as I damn well please to have breakfast, an afternoon snack or to daydream, and that does not constitute a matter for debate.’

‘I didn’t mean to offend you. I understand that slow digestion of food is an aid to inspiration.’

‘The third rule is that sarcasm is not allowed before noon. Understood?’

‘Yes, Señor Martín.’

‘The fourth is that you must not call me Señor Martín, not even at my funeral. I might seem like a fossil to you, but I like to think that I’m still young. In fact, I am young, end of story.’

‘How should I call you?’

‘By my name: David.’

The girl nodded. I opened the door of the apartment and showed her in. Isabella hesitated for a moment, then slipped in giving a little jump.

‘I think you still look quite young for your age, David.’

I stared at her in astonishment.

‘How old do you think I am?’

Isabella looked me up and down, assessing.

‘About thirty? But a young-looking thirty?’

‘Just shut up and go and make some coffee with that concoction you’ve brought.’

‘Where is the kitchen?’

‘Look for it.’

We shared a delicious Colombian coffee sitting in the gallery. Isabella held her cup and watched me furtively as I read the twenty pages she had brought with her. Every time I turned a page and looked up I was confronted by her expectant gaze.

‘If you’re going to sit there looking at me like an owl, this will take a long time.’

‘What do you want me to do?’

‘Didn’t you want to be my assistant? Then assist. Look for something that needs tidying and tidy it, for example.’

Isabella looked around.

‘Everything is untidy.’

‘This is your chance then.’

Isabella agreed and went off, with military determination, to confront the chaos that reigned in my home. I listened as her footsteps retreated down the corridor and then continued reading. The story she had brought me had almost no narrative thread. With a sharp sensitivity and an articulate turn of phrase, it described the feelings and longings that passed through the mind of a girl confined to a cold room in an attic of the Ribera quarter, from which she gazed at the city with its people coming and going along dark, narrow streets. The images and the sad music of her prose spoke of a loneliness that bordered on despair. The girl in the story spent hours trapped in her world; sometimes she would sit facing a mirror and slit her arms and thighs with a piece of broken glass, leaving scars like the ones just visible under Isabella’s sleeves. I had almost finished my reading when I noticed that she was looking at me from the gallery door.

‘What?’

‘I’m sorry to interrupt, but what’s in the room at the end of the corridor?’

‘Nothing.’

‘It smells odd.’

‘Damp.’

‘I can clean it if you like…’

‘No. That room is never used. And besides, you’re not my maid. You don’t need to clean anything.’

‘I’m only trying to help.’

‘You can help by getting me another cup of coffee.’

‘Why? Did the story make you feel drowsy?’

‘What’s the time, Isabella?’

‘It must be about ten o’clock.’

‘And what does that mean?’

‘No sarcasm before noon,’ Isabella replied.

I smiled triumphantly and handed her my empty cup. She took it and headed off towards the kitchen.

When she returned with the steaming coffee, I had just read the last page. Isabella sat down opposite me. I smiled and slowly sipped the delicious brew. The girl wrung her hands and gritted her teeth, glancing now and then at the pages of her story, which I had left face down on the table. She held out for a couple of minutes without saying a word.

‘And?’ she said at last.

‘Superb.’

Her face lit up.

‘My story?’

‘The coffee.’

She gave me a wounded look and went to gather her pages.

‘Leave them where they are.’

‘Why? It’s obvious that you didn’t like them and you think I’m nothing but a poor idiot.’

‘I didn’t say that.’

‘You didn’t say anything, which is worse.’

‘Isabella, if you really want to devote yourself to writing, or at least to writing something others will read, you’re going to have to get used sometimes to being ignored, insulted and despised, and almost always to being considered with indifference. It comes with the territory.’

Isabella looked down and took a deep breath.

‘I don’t know if I have any talent. I only know that I like to write. Or, rather, that I need to write.’

‘Liar.’

She looked up and gazed at me harshly.

‘OK. I am talented. And I don’t care two hoots if you think that I’m not.’

I smiled.

‘That’s better; I couldn’t agree with you more.’

She looked confused.

‘In that I have talent, or in that you think that I don’t?’

‘What do you think?’

‘Then, do you believe I have potential?’

‘I think you are talented and passionate, Isabella. More than you think and less than you expect. But there are a lot of people with talent and passion, and many of them never get anywhere. This is only the first step for achieving anything in life. Natural talent is like an athlete’s strength. You can be born with more or less ability, but nobody can become an athlete just because he or she was born tall, or strong, or fast. What makes the athlete, or the artist, is the work, the vocation and the technique. The intelligence you are born with is just ammunition. To achieve something with it you need to transform your mind into a high-precision weapon.’

‘Why the military metaphor?’

‘Every work of art is aggressive, Isabella. And every artist’s life is a small war or a large one, beginning with oneself and one’s limitations. To achieve anything you must first have ambition and then talent, knowledge, and finally the opportunity.’

Isabella considered my words.

‘Do you hurl that speech at everyone, or have you just made it up?’

‘The speech isn’t mine. It was “hurled” at me, as you put it, by someone to whom I asked the same questions that you’re asking me today. It was many years ago, but not a day goes by when I don’t realise how right he was.’

‘So, can I be your assistant?’

‘I’ll think about it.’

Isabella nodded, satisfied. On the table, close to where she was sitting, lay the photograph album Cristina had left behind. She opened it at random, starting from the back, and was soon staring at a picture of Señora de Vidal, taken by the gates of Villa Helius two or three years before she was married. I swallowed hard. Isabella closed the album and let her eyes wander around the gallery until they came to rest on me. I was observing her impatiently. She gave me a nervous smile, as if I’d caught her poking around where she had no business.

‘Your girlfriend is very beautiful,’ she said.

The look I gave her removed the smile in an instant.

‘She’s not my girlfriend.’

‘Oh.’

A long silence ensued.

‘I suppose the fifth rule is that I’m not to meddle in anything that doesn’t concern me, right?’

I didn’t reply. Isabella nodded to herself and stood up.

‘Then I’d better leave you in peace and not bother you any more today. If you like, I can come back tomorrow and we’ll start then.’

She gathered her pages and smiled shyly. I nodded.

Isabella left discreetly and disappeared down the corridor. I heard her steps as she walked away and then the sound of the door closing. Her absence made me aware, for the first time, of the silence that bewitched that house.

6

Perhaps there was too much caffeine coursing through my veins, or maybe it was just my conscience trying to return, like electricity after a power cut, but I spent the rest of the morning turning over in my mind an idea that was far from comforting. It was hard to imagine that there was no connection between the fire in which Barrido and Escobillas had perished, Corelli’s proposal – I hadn’t heard a single word from him, which made me suspicious – and the strange manuscript I had rescued from the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, which I suspected had been written within the four walls of my study.

The thought of returning to Corelli’s house uninvited, to ask him about the fact that our conversation and the fire should have occurred practically at the same time, was not appealing. My instinct told me that when the publisher decided he wanted to see me again he would do so motu propio and I was in no great hurry to pursue our inevitable meeting. The investigation into the fire was already in the hands of Inspector Víctor Grandes and his two bulldogs, Marcos and Castelo, on whose list of favourite people I came highly recommended. The further away I kept from them, the better. This left only the connection between the manuscript and the tower house. After years of telling myself it was no coincidence that I had ended up living here, the idea was beginning to take on a different significance.

I decided to start my own investigation in the place to which I had confined most of the belongings left behind by the previous inhabitants. I found the key to the room at the far end of the corridor in the kitchen drawer, where it had spent many years. I hadn’t been in that room since the men from the electrical company had wired up the house. When I put the key into the lock, I felt a draught of cold air from the keyhole brushing across my fingers, and I realised that Isabella was right; the room did give off a strange smell, reminiscent of dead flowers and freshly turned earth.

I opened the door and covered my mouth and nose. The stench was intense. I groped around the wall for the light switch, but the naked bulb hanging from the ceiling didn’t respond. The light from the corridor revealed the outline of the boxes, books and trunks I had banished to that room years before. I looked at everything with disgust. The wall at the end was completely covered by a large oak wardrobe. I knelt down by a box full of old photographs, spectacles, watches and other personal items. I began to rummage without really knowing what I was looking for, but after a while I abandoned the undertaking with a sigh. If I was hoping to discover anything I needed a plan. I was about to leave the room when I heard the wardrobe door slowly opening behind my back. A puff of icy, damp air touched the nape of my neck. I turned round slowly. The wardrobe door was half open and I could see the old dresses and suits that hung inside it, eaten away by time, fluttering like seaweed under water. The current of fetid cold air was coming from within. I stood up and walked towards the wardrobe. I opened the doors wide and pulled aside the clothes hanging on the rail. The wood at the back was rotten and had begun to disintegrate. Behind it I noticed what looked like a wall of plaster with a hole in it, a few centimetres wide. I leaned in to see what was on the other side of the wall, but it was almost pitch dark. The faint glow from the corridor cast only a vaporous thread of light through the hole into the space beyond, and all I could perceive was a murky gloom. I put my eye closer, trying to make out some shape, but at that moment a black spider appeared at the mouth of the hole. I recoiled quickly and the spider ran into the wardrobe, disappearing among the shadows. I closed the wardrobe door, left the room, turned the key in the lock and put it safely in the top of a chest of drawers in the corridor. The stench that had been trapped in the room had spread down the passage like poison. I cursed the moment I had decided to open that door and went outside to the street, hoping to forget, if only for a few hours, the darkness that throbbed at the heart of the tower house.

Bad ideas always come in twos. To celebrate the fact that I’d discovered some sort of camera obscura hidden in my home, I went to Sempere & Sons with the idea of taking the bookseller to lunch at La Maison Dorée. Sempere the elder was reading a beautiful edition of Potocki’s The Manuscript Found in Saragossa and wouldn’t even hear of it.

‘I don’t need to pay to see snobs and halfwits congratulating one another, Martín.’

‘Don’t be grumpy. I’m buying.’

Sempere declined. His son, who had witnessed the conversation from the entrance to the back room, looked at me, hesitating.

‘What if I take your son with me? Will you stop talking to me?’

‘It’s up to you how you waste your time and money. I’m staying here to read: life’s too short.’

Sempere’s son was the very model of discretion. Even though we’d known one another since we were children, I couldn’t remember having had more than three or four short conversations with him. I didn’t know of any vices or weaknesses he might have, but I had it on good authority that among the girls in the quarter he was considered to be quite a catch, the official golden bachelor. More than one would drop by the bookshop with any old excuse and stand sighing by the shop window. But Sempere’s son, even if he did notice, never tried to cash in on these promises of devotion and parted lips. Anyone else would have made a brilliant career in seduction with only a tenth of the capital. Anyone but Sempere’s son who, one sometimes felt, deserved to be called a saint.

‘At this rate, he’s going to end up on the shelf,’ Sempere complained from time to time.

‘Have you tried throwing a bit of chilli pepper into his soup to stimulate the blood flow in key areas?’ I would ask.

‘You can laugh, you rascal. I’m close to seventy and I don’t have a single grandson.’

We were received by the same head waiter I remembered from my last visit, but without the servile smile or welcoming gesture. When I told him we hadn’t made a reservation he nodded disdainfully, clicking his fingers to summon a young waiter, who guided us unceremoniously to what I imagined was the worst table in the room, next to the kitchen door and buried in a dark, noisy corner. During the following twenty-five minutes nobody came near our table, not even to offer us the menu or pour us a glass of water. The staff walked past, banging the door and utterly ignoring our presence and our attempts to attract their attention.

‘Don’t you think we should leave?’ Sempere’s son said at last. ‘I’d be happy with a sandwich in any old place…’

He’d hardly finished speaking when I saw them arrive. Vidal and his wife were advancing towards their table escorted by the head waiter and two other waiters who were falling over themselves to offer their congratulations. The Vidals sat down and a couple of minutes later the royal audience began: one after the other, all the diners in the room went over to congratulate Vidal. He received these obeisances with divine grace and sent each one away shortly afterwards. Sempere’s son, who had become aware of the situation, was observing me.

‘Martín, are you all right? Why don’t we leave?’

I nodded slowly. We got up and headed for the exit, skirting the edges of the dining room on the opposite side from the Vidals’ table. Before we left the restaurant we passed by the head waiter, who didn’t even bother to look at us, and as we reached the main door I saw, in the mirror above the doorframe, that Vidal was leaning over and kissing Cristina on the lips. Once outside, Sempere’s son looked at me, mortified.

‘I’m sorry, Martín.’

‘Don’t worry. Bad choice. That’s all. If you don’t mind, I’d prefer it if you didn’t tell your father about all this…’

‘Not a word,’ he assured me.

‘Thanks.’

‘Don’t mention it. What do you say if I treat you to something more plebeian? There’s an eatery in Calle del Carmen that’s a knockout.’

I’d lost my appetite, but I gladly accepted.

‘Sounds like a plan.’

The place was near the library and served good homemade meals at inexpensive prices for the people of the area. I barely touched my food, which smelled infinitely better than anything I’d smelled at La Maison Dorée in all the years it had been open, but by the time dessert came round I had already drunk, on my own, a bottle and a half of red wine and my head was spinning.

‘Tell me something, Sempere. What have you got against improving the human race? How is it that a young, healthy citizen, blessed by the Lord Almighty with as fine a figure as yours, has not yet taken advantage of the best offers on the market?’

The bookseller’s son laughed.

‘What makes you think that I haven’t?’

I touched my nose with my index finger and winked at him. Sempere’s son nodded.

‘You will probably take me for a prude, but I like to think that I’m waiting.’

‘Waiting for what? For your equipment to get rusty?’

‘You sound just like my father.’

‘Wise men think and speak alike.’

‘There must be something else, surely?’ he asked.

‘Something else?’

Sempere nodded.

‘What do I know?’ I said.

‘I think you do know.’

‘Fat lot of good it’s doing me.’

I was about to pour myself another glass when Sempere stopped me.

‘Moderation,’ he murmured.

‘See what a prude you are?’

‘We all are what we are.’

‘That can be cured. What do you say if you and I go out on the town?’

Sempere looked sorry for me.

‘Martín, I think the best thing you can do is go home and rest. Tomorrow is another day.’

‘You won’t tell your father I got plastered, will you?’

On my way home I stopped in at least seven bars to sample their most potent stock until, for one reason or another, I was thrown out; each time I walked on down the street in search of my next port of call. I had never been a big drinker and by the end of the afternoon I was so drunk I couldn’t even remember where I lived. I recall that a couple of waiters from the Hostal Ambos Mundos in Plaza Real took me by the arms and dumped me on a bench opposite the fountain, where I fell into a deep, thick stupor.

I dreamed that I was at Vidal’s funeral. A blood-filled sky glowered over the maze of crosses and angels surrounding the large mausoleum of the Vidal family in Montjuïc Cemetery. A silent cortège peopled with black veils encircled the amphitheatre of darkened marble that formed the portico of the tomb. Each figure carried a long white candle. The light from a hundred flames sculpted the contours of a great marble angel on a pedestal overcome with grief and loss. At the angel’s feet lay the open grave of my mentor and, inside it, a glass sarcophagus. Vidal’s body, dressed in white, lay under the glass, his eyes wide open. Black tears ran down his cheeks. The silhouette of his widow, Cristina, emerged from the cortège; she fell on her knees next to the body, drowning in grief. One by one, the members of the procession walked past the deceased and dropped black roses on his glass coffin, until it was almost completely covered and all one could see was his face. Two faceless gravediggers lowered the coffin into the grave, the base of which was flooded with a thick, dark liquid. The sarcophagus floated on the sheet of blood, which slowly filtered through the cracks in the glass cover, until little by little, it filled the coffin, covering Vidal’s dead body. Before his face was completely submerged, my mentor moved his eyes and looked at me. A flock of black birds took to the air and I started to run, losing my way among the paths of the endless city of the dead. Only the sound of distant crying enabled me to find the exit and to avoid the laments and pleadings of the dark, shadowy figures who waylaid me, begging me to take them with me, to rescue them from their eternal darkness.

Two policemen woke me, tapping my leg with their truncheons. Night had fallen and it took me a while to work out whether these were normal policemen on the beat, or agents of the Fates on a special mission.

‘Now, sir, go and sleep it off at home, understood?’

‘Yes, colonel!’

‘Hurry up or you’ll spend the night in jail; let’s see if you find that funny.’

He didn’t have to tell me twice. I got up as best I could and set off towards my house, hoping to get there before my feet led me off into some other seedy dive. The journey, which would normally have taken me ten or fifteen minutes, almost tripled in time. Finally, by some miraculous twist, I arrived at my front door only to find Isabella sitting there, like a curse, this time inside the main entrance of the building, in the courtyard.

‘You’re drunk,’ said Isabella.

‘I must be, because in mid delirium tremens I thought I discovered you sleeping in my doorway at midnight.’

‘I had nowhere else to go. My father and I quarrelled and he’s thrown me out.’

I closed my eyes and sighed. My brain, dulled by alcohol and bitterness, was unable to give any shape to the torrent of denials and curses piling up behind my lips.

‘You can’t stay here, Isabella.’

‘Please, just for tonight. Tomorrow I’ll look for a pensión. I beg you, Señor Martín.’

‘Don’t give me that doe-eyed look,’ I threatened.

‘Besides, it’s your fault that I’ve been thrown out,’ she added.

‘My fault. I like that! I don’t know whether you have any talent for writing, but you certainly have plenty of imagination! For what ill-fated reason, pray tell me, is it my fault that your dear father has chucked you out?’

‘When you’re drunk you have an odd way of speaking.’

‘I’m not drunk. I’ve never been drunk in my life. Now answer my question.’

‘I told my father you’d taken me on as your assistant and that from now on I was going to devote my life to literature and couldn’t work in the shop.’

‘What?’

‘Can we go in? I’m cold and my bum’s turned to stone from sitting on the steps.’

My head was going round in circles and I felt nauseous. I looked up at the faint glimmer that seeped through the skylight at the top of the stairs.

‘Is this a punishment from above to make me repent my rakish ways?’

Isabella followed my eyes upwards, looking puzzled.

‘Who are you talking to?’

‘I’m not talking to anyone; I’m giving a monologue. It’s the inebriated man’s prerogative. But tomorrow morning first thing I’m going to talk to your father and put an end to this absurdity.’

‘I don’t think that’s a good idea. He’s sworn to kill you if he sees you. He’s got a double-barrelled shotgun hidden under the counter. He’s like that. He once killed a mule with it. It was in the summer, near Argentona-’

‘Shut up. Not another word. Silence.’

Isabella nodded and looked at me expectantly. I began searching for my key. At that point I couldn’t cope with this garrulous adolescent’s drama. I needed to collapse onto my bed and lose consciousness, preferably in that order. I continued looking for a couple of minutes, but in vain. Finally, without saying a word, Isabella came over to me and rummaged through the pocket of my jacket, which my hands had already explored a hundred times, and found the key. She showed it to me, and I nodded, defeated.

Isabella opened the door to the apartment, keeping me upright, then guided me to my bedroom as if I were an invalid, and helped me onto my bed. After settling my head on the pillows, she removed my shoes. I looked at her in confusion.

‘Don’t worry, I’m not going to take your trousers off.’

She loosened my collar, sat down beside me and smiled with a melancholy expression that belied her youth.

‘I’ve never seen you so sad, Señor Martín. It’s because of that woman, isn’t it? The one in the photograph.’

She held my hand and stroked it, calming me.

‘Everything passes, believe me. Everything.’

Despite myself, I could feel my eyes filling with tears and I turned my head so that she couldn’t see my face. Isabella turned off the light on the bedside table and stayed there, sitting close to me in the dark, listening to the weeping of a miserable drunk, asking no questions, offering no opinion, offering nothing other than her company and her kindness, until I fell asleep.

7

I was woken by the agony of the hangover – a press clamping down on my temples – and the scent of Colombian coffee. Isabella had set a table by my bed with a pot of freshly brewed coffee and a plate with bread, cheese, ham and an apple. The sight of the food made me nauseous, but I stretched out my hand to reach for the coffee pot. Isabella, who had been watching from the doorway, rushed forward and poured a cup for me, full of smiles.

‘Drink it like this, good and strong; it will work wonders.’

I accepted the cup and drank.

‘What’s the time?’

‘One o’clock in the afternoon.’

I snorted.

‘How long have you been awake?’

‘About seven hours.’

‘Doing what?’

‘Cleaning, tidying up, but there’s enough work here for a few months,’ Isabella replied.

I took another long sip of coffee.

‘Thanks,’ I mumbled. ‘For the coffee. And for cleaning up, although you don’t have to do it.’

‘I’m not doing it for you, if that’s what you’re worried about. I’m doing it for myself. If I’m going to live here, I’d rather not have to worry about getting stuck to something if I lean on it accidentally.’

‘Live here? I thought we’d said that-’

As I raised my voice, a stab of pain scythed through my brain.

‘Shhhh,’ whispered Isabella.

I nodded, agreeing to a truce. I couldn’t quarrel with Isabella now, and I didn’t want to. There would be time enough to take her back to her family once the hangover had beaten a retreat. I finished my coffee in one long gulp and got up. Five or six thorns pierced my head. I groaned. Isabella caught hold of my arm.

‘I’m not an invalid. I can manage on my own.’

She let go of me tentatively. I took a few steps towards the corridor, with Isabella following close behind, as if she feared I was about to topple over at any moment. I stopped in front of the bathroom.

‘May I pee on my own?’

‘Mind how you aim,’ the girl murmured. ‘I’ll leave your breakfast in the gallery.’

‘I’m not hungry.’

‘You have to eat something.’

‘Are you my apprentice or my mother?’

‘It’s for your own good.’

I closed the bathroom door and sought refuge inside. It took a while for my eyes to adjust to what I was seeing. The bathroom was unrecognisable. Clean and sparkling. Everything in its place. A new bar of soap on the sink. Clean towels that I didn’t even know I owned. A smell of bleach.

‘Good God,’ I mumbled.

I put my head under the tap and let the cold water run for a couple of minutes, then went out into the corridor and slowly made my way to the gallery. If the bathroom was unrecognisable, the gallery now belonged to another world. Isabella had cleaned the windowpanes and the floor and tidied the furniture and armchairs. A diaphanous light filtered through the tall windows and the smell of dust had disappeared. My breakfast awaited on the table opposite the sofa, over which the girl had spread a clean throw. The books on the shelves seemed to have been reorganised and the glass cabinets had recovered their transparency. Isabella served me a second cup of coffee.

‘I know what you’re doing, and it’s not going to work.’

‘Pouring you a coffee?’

She had tidied up the books that lay scattered around in piles on tables and in corners. She had emptied magazine racks that had been overflowing for a decade or more. In just seven hours she had swept away years of darkness, and still she had the time and energy to smile.

‘I preferred it as it was,’ I said.

‘Of course you did, and so did the hundred thousand cockroaches you had as lodgers. I’ve sent them packing with the help of some ammonia.’

‘So that’s the stink I can smell?’

‘This “stink” is the smell of cleanliness,’ Isabella protested. ‘You could be a little bit grateful.’

‘I am.’

‘It doesn’t show. Tomorrow I’ll go up to the study and-’

‘Don’t even think about it.’

Isabella shrugged her shoulders, but she still looked determined and I knew that in twenty-four hours the study in the tower was going to suffer an irreparable transformation.

‘By the way, this morning I found an envelope in the corridor. Somebody must have slipped it under the door last night.’

I looked at her over my cup.

‘The main door downstairs is locked,’ I said.

‘That’s what I thought. Frankly, I did find it rather odd and, although it had your name on it-’

‘You opened it.’

‘I’m afraid so. I didn’t mean to.’

‘Isabella, opening other people’s letters is not a sign of good manners. In some places it’s even considered a crime that can be punished by a prison sentence.’

‘That’s what I tell my mother – she always opens my letters. And she’s still free.’

‘Where’s the letter?’

Isabella pulled an envelope out of the pocket of the apron she had donned and handed it to me, averting her eyes. The envelope had serrated edges and the paper was thick, porous and ivory-coloured, with an angel stamped on the red wax – now broken – and my name written in red, perfumed ink. I opened it and pulled out a folded sheet.

Dear David,

I hope this finds you in good health and that you have banked the agreed money without any problems. Do you think we could meet tonight at my house to start discussing the details of our project? A light dinner will be served around ten o’clock. I’ll be waiting for you.

Your friend,

ANDREAS CORELLI

I folded the sheet of paper and put it back in the envelope. Isabella looked at me with curiosity.

‘Good news?’

‘Nothing that concerns you.’

‘Who is this Señor Corelli? He has nice handwriting, not like yours.’

I looked at her severely.

‘If I’m going to be your assistant, it’s only logical that I should know who your contacts are. In case I have to send them packing, that is.’

I grunted.

‘He’s a publisher.’

‘He must be a good one, just look at the writing paper and envelope he uses. What book are you writing for him?’

‘It’s none of your business.’

‘How can I help you if you won’t tell me what you’re working on? No, don’t answer; I’ll shut up.’

For ten miraculous seconds, Isabella was silent.

‘What’s this Señor Corelli like, then?’

I looked at her coldly.

‘Peculiar…’

‘Birds of a feather…’

Watching that girl with a noble heart I felt, if anything, more miserable, and understood that the sooner I got her away from me, even at the risk of hurting her, the better it would be for both of us.

‘Why are you looking at me like that?’

‘I’m going out tonight, Isabella.’

‘Shall I leave some supper for you? Will you be back very late?’

‘I’ll be having dinner out and I don’t know when I’ll be back, but by the time I return, whenever it is, I want you to have left. I want you to collect your things and go. I don’t care where to. There’s no place for you here. Do you understand?’

Her face grew pale, and her eyes began to water. She bit her lip and smiled at me, her cheeks lined with falling tears.

‘I’m not needed here. Understood.’

‘And don’t do any more cleaning.’

I got up and left her alone in the gallery. I hid in the study, up in the tower, and opened the windows. I could hear Isabella sobbing down in the gallery. I gazed at the city stretching out under the midday sun then turned my head to look in the other direction, where I thought I could almost see the shining tiles covering Villa Helius. I imagined Cristina, Señora de Vidal, standing by the windows of her tower, looking down at the Ribera quarter. Something dark and murky filled my heart. I forgot Isabella’s weeping and wished only for the moment when I would meet Corelli, so that we could discuss his accursed book.

I stayed in the study as the afternoon spread over the city like blood floating in water. It was hot, hotter than it had been all summer, and the rooftops of the Ribera quarter seemed to shimmer like a mirage. I went down to the lower floor and changed my clothes. The house was silent, and in the gallery the shutters were half-closed and the windows tinted with an amber light that spread down the corridor.

‘Isabella?’ I called.

There was no reply. I went over to the gallery and saw that the girl had left. Before doing so, however, she had cleaned and put in order a collection of the complete works of Ignatius B. Samson. For years they had collected dust and oblivion in a glass cabinet that now shone immaculately. She had taken one of the books and left it open on a lectern. I read a line at random and felt as if I were travelling back to a time when everything seemed simple and inevitable.

‘Poetry is written with tears, novels with blood, and history with invisible ink,’ said the cardinal, as he spread poison on the knife-edge by the light of a candelabra.

The studied naivety of those lines made me smile and brought back a suspicion that had never really left me: perhaps it would have been better for everyone, especially for me, if Ignatius B. Samson had never committed suicide and David Martín had never taken his place.

8

It was getting dark when I went out. The heat and the humidity had encouraged many of my neighbours to bring their chairs out into the street, hoping for a breeze that never came. I dodged the improvised rings of people sitting around front doors and on street corners, and made my way to the railway station, where there was always a queue of taxis waiting for customers. I got into the first cab in the rank. It took us about twenty minutes to cross the city and climb the hill on whose slopes lay Gaudí’s ghostly forest. The lights in Corelli’s house could be seen from afar.

‘I didn’t know anyone lived here,’ the driver remarked.

As soon as I’d paid for my ride, including a tip, he sped off, not wasting a second. I waited a few moments, savouring the strange silence that filled the place. Not a single leaf moved in the wood that covered the hill behind me. A starlit sky with wisps of cloud spread in every direction. I could hear the sound of my own breathing, of my clothes rustling as I walked, of my steps getting closer to the door. I rapped with the knocker, then waited.

The door opened a few moments later. A man with drooping eyes and drooping shoulders nodded when he saw me and beckoned me in. His outfit suggested that he was some sort of butler or servant. He made no sound at all. I followed him down the passageway with the portraits on either side, and when we came to the end, he showed me into the large sitting room with its view over the whole city in the distance. He bowed slightly and left me on my own, walking away as slowly as he had when he brought me in. I went over to the French windows and looked through the net curtains, killing time while I waited for Corelli. A couple of minutes had gone by before I noticed that someone was observing me from a corner of the room. He was sitting in an armchair, completely still, half in darkness, the light from an oil lamp revealing only his legs and his hands as they rested on the arms of the chair. I recognised him by the glow of his unblinking eyes and by the angel-shaped brooch he always wore on his lapel. As soon as I looked at him he stood up and came over to me with quick steps – too quick – and a wolfish smile that froze my blood.

‘Good evening, Martín.’

I nodded, trying to smile back.

‘I’ve startled you again,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry. May I offer you something to drink, or shall we go straight to dinner?’

‘To tell you the truth, I’m not hungry.’

‘It’s the heat, I’m sure. If you like, we can go into the garden and talk there.’

The silent butler reappeared and proceeded to open the doors to the garden, where a path of candles placed on saucers led to a white metal table with two chairs facing each other. The flame from the candles burned bright and did not flicker. The moon cast a soft, bluish hue. I sat down, and Corelli followed suit, while the butler poured us two glasses from a decanter of what I thought must be wine or some sort of liqueur I had no intention of tasting. In the light of the waxing moon, Corelli seemed younger, his features sharper. He observed me with an intensity verging on greed.

‘Something is bothering you, Martín.’

‘I suppose you’ve heard about the fire.’

‘A terrible end, and yet there was poetic justice in it.’

‘You think it just that two men should die in such a way?’

‘Would a gentler way have seemed more acceptable? Justice is an affectation of perspective, not a universal value. I’m not going to pretend to feel dismayed when I don’t, and I don’t suppose you will either, however hard you try. But if you prefer, we can have a minute’s silence.’

‘That won’t be necessary.’

‘Of course not. It’s only necessary when one has nothing valid to say. Silence makes even idiots seem wise for a minute. Anything else worrying you, Martín?’

‘The police seem to think I have something to do with what happened. They asked me about you.’

Corelli nodded, unconcerned.

‘The police must do their work and we must do ours. Shall we close this matter?’

I nodded. Corelli smiled.

‘A while ago, as I was waiting for you, I realised that you and I have a small rhetorical conversation pending. The sooner we get it out of the way, the sooner we can get started. I’d like to begin by asking what faith means to you.’

I pondered for a moment.

‘I’ve never been a religious person. Rather than believe or disbelieve, I doubt. Doubt is my faith.’

‘Very prudent and very bourgeois. But you don’t win a game by hitting the balls out of court. Why would you say that so many different beliefs have appeared and disappeared throughout history?’

‘I don’t know. Social, economic or political factors, I suppose. You’re talking to someone who left school at the age of ten. History has never been my strong point.’

‘History is biology’s dumping ground, Martín.’

‘I think I wasn’t at school the day that lesson was taught.’

‘This lesson is not taught in classrooms, Martín. It is taught through reason and the observation of reality. This lesson is the one nobody wants to learn and is therefore the one we must examine carefully in order to be able to do our work. All business opportunities stem from someone else’s inability to resolve a simple and inevitable problem.’

‘Are we talking about religion or economics?’

‘You choose the label.’

‘If I understand you correctly, you’re suggesting that faith, the act of believing in myths, ideologies or supernatural legends, is the consequence of biology.’

‘That’s exactly right.’

‘A rather cynical view, coming from a publisher of religious texts,’ I remarked.

‘A dispassionate and professional view,’ Corelli explained. ‘Human beings believe just as they breathe – in order to survive.’

‘Is that your theory?’

‘It’s not a theory, it’s a statistic.’

‘It occurs to me that at least three quarters of the world would disagree with that assertion,’ I said.

‘Of course. If they agreed they wouldn’t be potential believers. Nobody can really be convinced of something he or she doesn’t need to believe in through some biological imperative.’

‘Are you suggesting then that it is part of our nature to be deceived?’

‘It is part of our nature to survive. Faith is an instinctive response to aspects of existence that we cannot explain by any other means – be it the moral void we perceive in the universe, the certainty of death, the mystery of the origin of things, the meaning of our own lives, or the absence of meaning. These are basic and extremely simple aspects of existence, but our own limitations prevent us from responding in an unequivocal way, and for that reason we generate an emotional response, as a defence mechanism. It’s pure biology.’

‘According to you, then, all beliefs or ideals are nothing more than fiction.’

‘All interpretation or observation of reality is necessarily fiction. In this case, the problem is that man is a moral animal abandoned in an amoral universe and condemned to a finite existence with no other meaning than to perpetuate the natural cycle of the species. It is impossible to survive in a prolonged state of reality, at least for a human being. We spend a good part of our lives dreaming, especially when we’re awake. As I said, pure biology.’

I sighed.

‘And after all this, you want me to invent a fable that will make the unwary fall on their knees and persuade them that they have seen the light, that there is something to believe in, something to live and die for – even to kill for.’

‘Exactly. I’m not asking you to invent anything that hasn’t already been invented, one way or another. I’m only asking you to help me give water to the thirsty.’

‘A praiseworthy and pious proposition,’ I said with irony.

‘No, simply a commercial proposition. Nature is one huge free market. The law of supply and demand is a molecular fact.’

‘Perhaps you should find an intellectual to do this job. I can assure you that most of them have never seen a hundred thousand francs in their lives. I bet they’d be prepared to sell their soul, or even invent it, for a fraction of that amount.’

The metallic glow in his eyes made me suspect that Corelli was about to deliver another of his hard-hitting pocket sermons. I visualised the credit in my account at the Banco Hispano Colonial and told myself that a hundred thousand francs were well worth the price of listening to a Mass, or a collection of homilies.

‘An intellectual is usually someone who isn’t exactly distinguished by his intellect,’ Corelli asserted. ‘He claims that label to compensate for his own inadequacies. It’s as old as that saying: tell me what you boast of and I’ll tell you what you lack. Our daily bread. The incompetent always present themselves as experts, the cruel as pious, sinners as excessively devout, usurers as benefactors, the small-minded as patriots, the arrogant as humble, the vulgar as elegant and the feeble-minded as intellectual. Once again, it’s all the work of nature. Far from being the sylph to whom poets sing, nature is a cruel, voracious mother who needs to feed on the creatures she gives birth to in order to stay alive.’

Corelli and his fierce biological poetics were beginning to make me feel queasy. I was uncomfortable at the barely contained vehemence of the publisher’s words, and I wondered whether there was anything in the universe that did not seem repugnant and despicable to him, including myself.

‘You should give inspirational talks in schools and churches on Palm Sunday. You’d be a tremendous success,’ I suggested.

Corelli laughed coldly.

‘Don’t change the subject. What I’m searching for is the opposite of an intellectual, in other words, someone intelligent. And I have found that person.’

‘You flatter me.’

‘Better still, I pay you. And I pay you very well, which is the only real form of flattery in this whorish world. Never accept medals unless they come printed on the back of a cheque. They only benefit those who give them. And since I’m paying you, I expect you to listen and follow my instructions. Believe me when I say that I have no interest at all in making you waste your time. While you’re in my pay, your time is also my time.’

His tone was friendly, but his eyes shone like steel and left no room for misunderstandings.

‘You don’t need to remind me every five minutes.’

‘Forgive my insistence, dear Martín. If I’m making your head spin with all these details it’s only because I’m trying to get them out of the way sooner rather than later. What I want from you is the form, not the content. The content is always the same and has been in place ever since human life began. It’s engraved on your heart with a serial number. What I want you to do is find an intelligent and seductive way of answering the questions we all ask ourselves and you should do so using your own reading of the human soul, putting into practice your art and your profession. I want you to bring me a narrative that awakens the soul.’

‘Nothing more…’

‘Nothing less.’

‘You’re talking about manipulating feelings and emotions. Would it not be easier to convince people with a rational, simple and straightforward account?’

‘No. It’s impossible to initiate a rational dialogue with someone about beliefs and concepts if he has not acquired them through reason. It doesn’t matter whether we’re looking at God, race, or national pride. That’s why I need something more powerful than a simple rhetorical exposition. I need the strength of art, of stagecraft. We think we understand a song’s lyrics, but what makes us believe in them, or not, is the music.’

I tried to take in all his gibberish without choking.

‘Don’t worry, there’ll be no more speeches for today,’ Corelli interjected. ‘Now let’s discuss practical matters: we’ll meet about once a fortnight. You will inform me of your progress and show me the work you’ve produced. If I have any changes or observations to make, I will point them out to you. The work will continue for twelve months, or whatever fraction of that time you need to complete the job. At the end of that period you will hand in all the work and the documents it generated, with no exceptions: they belong to the sole proprietor and guarantor of the rights, in other words, me. Your name will not appear as the author of the document and you will agree not to claim authorship after delivery, or to discuss the work you have written or the terms of this agreement, either in private or in public, with anybody. In exchange, you will receive the initial payment of one hundred thousand francs, which has already been paid to you, and, upon receipt of the work to my satisfaction, an additional bonus of fifty thousand francs.’

I gulped. One is never wholly conscious of the greed hidden in one’s heart until one hears the sweet sound of silver.

‘Don’t you want to formalise the contract in writing?’

‘Ours is a gentleman’s agreement, based on honour: yours and mine. It has already been sealed. A gentleman’s agreement cannot be broken because it breaks the person who has signed it,’ said Corelli in a tone that made me think it might have been better to sign a piece of paper, even if it had to be written in blood. ‘Any questions?’

‘Yes. Why?’

‘I don’t follow you, Martín.’

‘Why do you want all this material, or whatever you wish to call it? What do you plan to do with it?’

‘Problems of conscience, at this stage, Martín?’

‘Perhaps you think of me as someone with no principles, but if I’m going to take part in the project you’re proposing, I want to know what the objective is. I think I have a right to know.’

Corelli smiled and placed his hand on mine. I felt a shiver at the contact of his skin, which was icy cold and smooth as marble.

‘Because you want to live.’

‘That sounds vaguely threatening.’

‘A simple and friendly reminder of what you already know. You’ll help me because you want to live and because you don’t care about the price or the consequences. Because not that long ago you saw yourself at death’s door and now you have an eternity before you and the opportunity of a life. You will help me because you’re human. And because, although you don’t want to admit it, you have faith.’

I withdrew my hand from his reach and watched him get up from his chair and walk over to the end of the garden.

‘Don’t worry, Martín. Everything will turn out all right. Trust me,’ said Corelli in a sweet, almost paternal tone.

‘May I leave now?’

‘Of course. I don’t want to keep you any longer than is necessary. I’ve enjoyed our conversation. I’ll let you go now, so you can start mulling over all the things we’ve discussed. You’ll see that, once the indigestion has passed, the real answers will come to you. There is nothing in the path of life that we don’t already know before we started. Nothing important is learned, it is simply remembered.’

He signalled to the taciturn butler, who was waiting at the edge of the garden.

‘A car will pick you up and take you home. We’ll meet again in two weeks’ time.’

‘Here?’

‘It’s in the lap of the Gods,’ Corelli said, licking his lips as if he’d made a delicious joke.

The butler came over and motioned for me to follow him. Corelli nodded and sat down, his eyes lost once more on the city below.

9

The car – for want of a better word – was waiting by the door of the large, old house. It was not an ordinary automobile, but a collector’s item. It reminded me of an enchanted carriage, a cathedral on wheels, its chrome and curves engineered by science, its bonnet topped by a silver angel like a ship’s figurehead. In other words, a Rolls-Royce. The butler opened the door for me and took his leave with a bow. I stepped inside: it looked more like a hotel room than a motor car. The engine started up as soon as I settled in the seat, and we set off down the hill.

‘Do you know the address?’ I asked.

The chauffeur, a dark figure on the other side of a glass partition, nodded vaguely. We crossed Barcelona in the narcotic silence of that metal carriage, barely touching the ground, or so it seemed. Streets and buildings flew past the windows like underwater cliffs. It was after midnight when the black Rolls-Royce turned off Calle Comercio and entered Paseo del Borne. The car stopped on the corner of Calle Flassaders, which was too narrow for it to pass through. The chauffeur got out and opened my door with a bow. I stepped from the car and he closed the door and got in again without saying a word. I watched him leave, the dark silhouette blending into a veil of shadows. I asked myself what I had done, and, choosing not to seek an answer, I set off towards my house feeling as if the whole world was a prison from which there was no escape.

When I walked into the apartment I went straight up to the study. I opened the windows on all four sides and let the humid breeze penetrate the room. I could see people lying on mattresses and sheets on some of the neighbouring flat roofs, trying to escape the suffocating heat and get some sleep. In the distance, the three large chimneys in the Paralelo area rose like funeral pyres spreading a mantle of white ash over Barcelona. Nearer to me, on the dome of La Mercè church, the statue of Our Lady of Mercy, poised for ascension into heaven, reminded me of the angel on the Rolls-Royce and of the one Corelli always sported on his lapel. After many months of silence it felt as if the city were speaking to me again, telling me its secrets.

Then I saw her, curled up on a doorstep in that miserable, narrow tunnel between old buildings they called Fly Alley. Isabella. I wondered how long she’d been there and told myself it was none of my business. I was about to close the window and walk over to the desk when I noticed that she was not alone. Two figures were slowly, perhaps too slowly, advancing towards her from the other end of the street. I sighed, hoping they would pass her by. They didn’t. One of them took up a position blocking the exit from the alley. The other knelt down in front of the girl, stretching an arm out towards her. The girl moved. A few moments later the two figures closed in on Isabella and I heard her scream.

It took me about forty-five seconds to get there. When I did, one of the two men had grabbed Isabella by her arms and the other had pulled up her skirt. A terrified expression gripped the girl’s face. The second man guffawed as he made his way between her thighs, holding a knife to her throat. Three lines of blood oozed from the cut. I looked around me. A couple of boxes of rubbish and a pile of cobblestones and building materials lay abandoned by the wall. I grabbed what turned out to be a metal bar, solid and heavy, about half a metre long. The first man to notice my presence was the one holding the knife. I took a step forward, brandishing the metal bar. His eyes jumped from the bar to my eyes and his smile disappeared. The other turned and saw me advancing towards them holding the bar up high. A nod from me was enough to make him let go of Isabella and quickly stand behind his companion.

‘Come on, let’s go,’ he whispered.

The other man ignored his words. He was looking straight at me with fire in his eyes, the knife still in his hand.

‘Who asked you to stick your oar in, you son-of-a-bitch?’

I took Isabella by the arm, lifting her up from the ground, without taking my eyes off the man with the knife. I searched for the keys in my pocket and gave them to her.

‘Go home,’ I shouted. ‘Do as I say.’

Isabella hesitated for a moment, but soon I heard her running towards Calle Flassaders. The guy with the knife saw her leave and smiled angrily.

‘I’m going to slash you, you bastard.’

I didn’t doubt his ability or his wish to carry out his threat, but something in his eyes made me think that my opponent was not altogether stupid and if he had not done so already it was because he was wondering how much the metal bar I was holding might weigh and, above all, whether I’d have the strength, the courage and the time to squash his skull with it before he could thrust his blade into me.

‘Go on,’ I invited him.

The man held my eyes for a few seconds and then laughed. The other one sighed with relief. The first folded his blade and spat at my feet. Then he turned round and walked off into the shadows from which he had emerged, his companion running behind him like a puppy.

I found Isabella curled up at the bottom of the stairs in the inner courtyard of the tower house. She was trembling and held the keys with both hands. When she saw me come in she jumped up.

‘Do you want me to call a doctor?’

She shook her head.

‘Are you sure?’

‘They hadn’t managed to do anything to me yet,’ she mumbled, fighting away the tears.

‘It didn’t look that way.’

‘They didn’t do anything, all right?’ she protested.

‘All right,’ I said.

I wanted to hold her arm as we went up the stairs, but she avoided any contact.

Once in the apartment I took her to the bathroom and turned on the light.

‘Have you any clean clothes you can put on?’

Isabella showed me the bag she was carrying and nodded.

‘Come on, you wash while I get something ready for dinner.’

‘How can you be hungry after what just happened?’

‘Well, I am.’

Isabella bit her lower lip.

‘The truth is, so am I…’

‘End of discussion then,’ I said.

I closed the bathroom door and waited until I heard the taps running, then returned to the kitchen and put some water on to boil. There was a bit of rice left, some bacon, and a few vegetables that Isabella had brought over the day before. I improvised a dish made from leftovers and waited almost thirty minutes for her to come out of the bathroom, downing almost half a bottle of wine in that time. I heard her crying with anger on the other side of the wall. When she appeared at the kitchen door her eyes were red and she looked more like a child than ever.

‘I’m not sure that I’m still hungry,’ she murmured.

‘Sit down and eat.’

We sat down at the small table in the middle of the kitchen. Isabella examined her plate of rice and chopped-up bits with some suspicion.

‘Eat,’ I ordered.

She brought a tentative spoonful to her lips.

‘It’s good,’ she said.

I poured her half a glass of wine and topped it up with water.

‘My father doesn’t let me drink wine.’

‘I’m not your father.’

We had dinner in silence, exchanging glances. Isabella finished her plate and the slice of bread I’d given her. She smiled shyly. She didn’t realise that the shock hadn’t yet hit her. Then I went with her to her bedroom door and turned on the light.

‘Try to get some rest,’ I said. ‘If you need anything, bang on the wall. I’m in the next room.’

Isabella nodded. ‘I heard you snoring the other night.’

‘I don’t snore.’

‘It must have been the pipes. Or maybe there’s a neighbour with a pet bear.’

‘One more word and you’re back in the street.’

‘Thanks,’ she whispered. ‘Don’t close the door completely, please. Leave it ajar.’

‘Goodnight,’ I said, turning out the light and leaving Isabella in the dark.

Later, while I undressed in my bedroom, I noticed a dark mark on my cheek, like a black tear. I went over to the mirror and brushed it away with my fingers. It was dried blood. Only then did I realise that I was exhausted and my whole body was aching.

10

The following morning, before Isabella woke up, I walked over to her family’s grocery shop on Calle Mirallers. It was just getting light and the security grille over the shop door was only half open. I slipped inside and found a couple of young boys piling up boxes of tea and other goods on the counter.

‘We’re closed,’ one of them said.

‘Well, you don’t look closed. Go and fetch the owner.’

While I waited, I kept myself busy by examining the family emporium of the ungrateful heiress Isabella, who in her infinite innocence had turned her back on the ambrosia of commerce to prostrate herself before the miseries of literature. The shop was a small bazaar full of marvels brought from every corner of the world. Jams, sweets and teas. Coffees, spices and tinned food. Fruit and cured meats. Chocolates and smoked ham. A Pantagruelian paradise for well-lined pockets. Don Odón, the girl’s father and manager of the establishment, appeared shortly afterwards wearing a blue overall, a marshal’s moustache and an expression of alarm that seemed to herald a heart attack at any moment. I decided to skip the pleasantries.

‘Your daughter says you have a double-barrelled shotgun with which you have sworn to kill me,’ I said, stretching my arms out to the sides. ‘Well, here I am.’

‘Who are you, you scoundrel?’

‘I’m the scoundrel who’s had to take in a young girl because her pathetic father was unable to keep her under control.’

The shopkeeper’s angry expression disappeared and was replaced with a faint-hearted smile.

‘Señor Martín? I didn’t recognise you… How is my child?’

I sighed.

‘Your child is safe and sound in my house, snoring like a mastiff, but with her honour and virtue intact.’

The shopkeeper crossed himself twice, much relieved.

‘God bless you.’

‘Thank you very much, but in the meantime I’m going to ask you to come and collect her today without fail, otherwise I’ll smash your face in, shotgun or no shotgun.’

‘Shotgun?’ the shopkeeper mumbled in confusion.

His wife, a small nervous-looking woman, was spying on us from behind the curtain that concealed the back room. Something told me there would be no shots fired here. Don Odón huffed and puffed and looked as if he was on the point of collapse.

‘Nothing would please me more, Señor Martín. But the girl doesn’t want to be here,’ he argued, devastated.

When I realised the shopkeeper was not the rogue Isabella had painted him as, I was sorry for the way I’d spoken.

‘You haven’t thrown her out of your house?’

Don Odón opened his eyes wide and looked hurt. His wife stepped forward and took her husband’s hand.

‘We had an argument,’ he said. ‘Things were said that shouldn’t have been said, on both sides. But that girl has such a temper, you wouldn’t believe it… She threatened to leave us and said she’d never come back. Her saintly mother nearly passed away from the palpitations. I shouted at her and said I’d stick her in a convent.’

‘An infallible argument when reasoning with a seventeen-year-old girl,’ I pointed out.

‘It was the first thing that came to mind,’ the shopkeeper argued. ‘As if I would put her in a convent!’

‘From what I’ve seen, you’d need the help of a whole regiment of infantry.’

‘I don’t know what that girl has told you, Señor Martín, but you mustn’t believe her. We might not be very refined, but we’re not monsters either. I don’t know how to deal with her any more. I’m not the type of man who would pull out a belt and give her forty lashes. And my missus here daren’t even shout at the cat. I don’t know where the girl gets it from. I think it’s all that reading. Mind you, the nuns did warn us. And my father, God rest his soul, used to say it too: the day women are allowed to learn to read and write, the world will become ungovernable.’

‘A deep thinker, your father, but that doesn’t solve your problem or mine.’

‘What can we do? Isabella doesn’t want to be with us, Señor Martín. She says we’re dim and we don’t understand her; she says we want to bury her in this shop… There’s nothing I’d like more than to understand her. I’ve worked in this shop since I was seven years old, from dawn to dusk, and the only thing I understand is that the world is a nasty place with no consideration for a young girl who has her head in the clouds,’ the shopkeeper explained, leaning on a barrel. ‘My greatest fear is that, if I force her to return, she might really run away and fall into the hands of any old… I don’t even want to think about it.’

‘It’s true,’ his wife said, with a slight Italian accent. ‘Believe me, the girl has broken our hearts, but this is not the first time she’s gone away. She’s turned out just like my mother, who had a Neapolitan temperament…’

‘Oh, la mamma,’ said Don Odón, shuddering even at the memory of his mother-in-law.

‘When she told us she was going to stay at your house for a few days while she helped you with your work, well, we felt reassured,’ Isabella’s mother went on, ‘because we know you’re a good person and basically the girl is nearby, only two streets away. We’re sure you’ll be able to convince her to return.’

I wondered what Isabella had told them about me to persuade them that yours truly could walk on water.

‘Only last night, just round the corner from here, two labourers on their way home were given a terrible beating. Imagine! It seems they were battered with an iron pole, smashed to bits like dogs. One of them might not survive, and it looks like the other one will be crippled for life,’ said the mother. ‘What sort of world are we living in?’

Don Odón gave me a worried look.

‘If I go and fetch her, she’ll leave again. And this time I don’t know whether she’ll end up with someone like you. It’s not right for a young girl to live in a bachelor’s house, but at least you’re honest and will know how to take care of her.’

The shopkeeper looked as if he was about to cry. I would have preferred it if he’d rushed off to fetch the gun. There was still the chance that some Neapolitan cousin might turn up, armed with a blunderbuss, to save the girl’s honour. Porca miseria.

‘Do I have your word that you’ll look after her for me until she comes to her senses?’

I grunted. ‘You have my word.’

I returned home laden with superb delicacies which Don Odón and his wife had insisted on foisting on me. I promised them I’d take care of Isabella for a few days, until she agreed to reason things out and understand that her place was with her family. The shopkeepers wanted to pay me for her keep, but I refused. My plan was that, before the week was up, Isabella would be back sleeping in her own home, even if, to achieve that, I had to keep up the pretence that she was my assistant. Taller towers had toppled.

When I got home I found her sitting at the kitchen table. She had washed all the dishes from the night before, had made coffee and had dressed and styled her hair so that she resembled a saint in a religious picture. Isabella, who was no fool, knew perfectly well where I’d been and looked at me like an abandoned dog, smiling meekly. I left the bags with the delicacies from Don Odón by the sink.

‘Didn’t my father shoot you with his gun?’

‘He’d run out of bullets and decided to throw all these pots of jam and Manchego cheese at me instead.’

Isabella pressed her lips together, trying to look serious.

‘So the name Isabella comes from your grandmother?’

‘La mamma,’ she confirmed. ‘In the area they called her Vesuvia.’

‘You don’t say.’

‘They say I’m a bit like her. When it comes to persistence.’

There was no need for a judge to pronounce on that, I thought.

‘Your parents are good folk, Isabella. They don’t misunderstand you any more than you misunderstand them.’

The girl didn’t say anything. She poured me a cup of coffee and waited for the verdict. I had two options: throw her out and give the two shopkeepers a fit; or be bold and patient for two or three more days. I imagined that forty-eight hours of my most cynical and cutting performance would be enough to break the iron determination of the young girl and send her, on her knees, back to her mother’s apron strings, begging for forgiveness and full board.

‘You can stay here for the time being-’

‘Thank you!’

‘Not so fast. You can stay here under the following conditions: one, that you go and spend some time in the shop every day, to say hello to your parents and tell them you’re well; and two, that you obey me and follow the rules of this house.’

It sounded patriarchal but excessively faint-hearted. I maintained my austere expression and decided to make my tone more severe.

‘What are the rules of this house?’ Isabella enquired.

‘Basically, whatever I damn well please.’

‘Sounds fair.’

‘It’s a deal, then.’

Isabella came round the table and hugged me gratefully. I felt the warmth and the firm shape of her seventeen-year-old body against mine. I pushed her away delicately, keeping my distance.

‘The first rule is that this is not Little Women and we don’t hug one another or burst into tears at the slightest thing.’

‘Whatever you say.’

‘That will be the motto on which we’ll build our coexistence: whatever I say.’

Isabella laughed and rushed off into the corridor.

‘Where do you think you’re going?’

‘To tidy up your study. You don’t mean to leave it like that, do you?’

11

I had to find a place where I could think, where I could escape from my new assistant’s domestic pride and her obsession with cleanliness. So I went to the library in Calle del Carmen, set in a nave of Gothic arches that had once housed a medieval hospice. I spent the rest of the day surrounded by volumes that smelled like a papal tomb, reading about mythology and the history of religions until my eyes were about to fall out onto the table and roll away along the library floor. After hours of reading without a break, I worked out that I had barely scratched a millionth of what I could find beneath the arches of that sanctuary of books, let alone everything else that had been written on the subject. I decided to return the following day and the day after that: I would spend at least a week filling the cauldron of my thoughts with pages and pages about gods, miracles and prophecies, saints and apparitions, revelations and mysteries – anything rather than think about Cristina, Don Pedro and their life as a married couple.

As I had an obliging assistant at my disposal, I instructed her to find copies of catechisms and school books currently used for religious instruction, and to write me a summary of each one. Isabella did not dispute my orders, but she frowned when I gave them.

‘I want to know, in numbing detail, how children are taught the whole business, from Noah’s Ark to the Feeding of the Five Thousand,’ I explained.

‘Why?’

‘Because that’s the way I am. I have a wide range of interests.’

‘Are you doing research for a new version of “Away in a Manger”?’

‘No. I’m planning a novel about the adventures of a second lieutenant nun. Just do as I say and don’t question me or I’ll send you back to your parents’ shop to sell quince jelly galore.’

‘You’re a despot.’

‘I’m glad to see we’re getting to know one another.’

‘Does this have anything to do with the book you’re writing for that publisher, Corelli?’

‘It might.’

‘Well, I get the feeling it’s not a book that will have much commercial scope.’

‘And what would you know?’

‘More than you think. And there’s no need to get so worked up, either. I’m only trying to help you. Or have you decided to stop being a professional writer and change into an elegant amateur?’

‘For the moment I’m too busy being a nanny.’

‘I wouldn’t bring up the question of who is the nanny here, because I’d win that debate hands down.’

‘So what debate does Your Excellency fancy?’

‘Commercial art versus stupid moral idiocies.’

‘Dear Isabella, my little Vesuvia: in commercial art – and all art that is worthy of the name is commercial sooner or later – stupidity is almost always in the eye of the beholder.’

‘Are you calling me stupid?’

‘I’m calling you to order. Do as I say. End of story. Shush.’

I pointed to the door and Isabella rolled her eyes, mumbling some insult or other which I didn’t quite hear as she walked off down the passageway.

While Isabella went around schools and bookshops in search of textbooks and catechisms to precis for me, I went back to the library in Calle del Carmen to further my theological education, an endeavour I undertook fuelled by strong doses of coffee and stoicism. The first seven days of that strange creative process only enlightened me with more doubts. One of the few truths I discovered was that the vast majority of authors who had felt a calling to write about the divine, the human and the sacred must have been exceedingly learned and pious, but as writers they were dreadful. For the long-suffering reader forced to skim over their pages it was a real struggle not to fall into a coma induced by boredom with each new paragraph.

After surviving thousands of pages on the subject, I was beginning to get the impression that the hundreds of religious beliefs catalogued throughout the history of the printed letter were all extraordinarily similar. I attributed this first impression to my ignorance or to a lack of adequate information, but I couldn’t rid myself of the idea that I’d been going through the storyline of dozens of crime novels in which the murderer turned out to be either one person or another, but the mechanics of the plot were, in essence, always the same. Myths and legends, either about divinities or the formation and history of peoples and races, began to look like pictures on a jigsaw puzzle, slightly different from one another but always built with the same pieces, though not in the same order.

After two days I had already become friends with Eulalia, the head librarian, who picked out texts and volumes from the ocean of paper in her care and from time to time came to see me at my table in the corner to ask whether I needed anything else. She must have been around my age, and had wit coming out of her ears, usually in the form of sharp, somewhat poisonous jibes.

‘You’re reading a lot of hagiography, sir. Have you decided to become an altar boy now, at the threshold of maturity?’

‘It’s only research.’

‘Ah, that’s what they all say.’

The librarian’s clever jokes provided an invaluable balm that enabled me to survive those texts that seemed to be carved in stone, and to press on with my pilgrimage. Whenever Eulalia had a free moment she would come over to my table and help me classify all that bilge – pages abounding with stories of fathers and sons; of pure, saintly mothers; betrayals and conversions; prophets and martyrs; envoys from heaven; babies born to save the universe; evil creatures, horrifying to look at and usually taking the form of an animal; ethereal beings with racially acceptable features who acted as agents of good; and heroes subjected to terrible tests to prove their destiny. Earthly existence was always perceived as a temporary rite of passage which invited one to a docile acceptance of one’s lot and the rules of the tribe, because the reward was always in the hereafter, a paradise brimming with all the things one had lacked during corporeal life.

On Thursday at midday, Eulalia came over to my table during one of her breaks and asked me whether, apart from reading missals, I ate every now and then. So I asked her to lunch at nearby Casa Leopoldo, which had just opened to the public. While we enjoyed a delicious oxtail stew, she told me she’d been in the same job for over two years and had spent two more years working on a novel that was proving difficult to finish. It was set in the library on Calle del Carmen and the plot was based on a series of mysterious crimes that took place there.

‘I’d like to write something similar to those novels that were published some years ago by Ignatius B. Samson,’ she said. ‘Ever heard of them?’

‘Vaguely,’ I replied.

Eulalia couldn’t quite find a way forward with her writing so I suggested she give it all a slightly sinister tone and focus the story on a secret book possessed by a tormented spirit, with subplots that were apparently supernatural in content.

‘That’s what Ignatius B. Samson would do, in your place,’ I suggested.

‘And what are you doing reading all about angels and devils? Don’t tell me you’re a repentant ex-seminarist.’

‘I’m trying to find out what the origins of different religions and myths have in common,’ I explained.

‘What have you discovered so far?’

‘Almost nothing. I don’t want to bore you with my lament.’

‘You won’t bore me. Go on.’

I shrugged my shoulders.

‘Well, what I’ve found most interesting so far is that, generally speaking, beliefs arise from an event or character that may or may not be authentic, and rapidly evolve into social movements that are conditioned and shaped by the political, economic and societal circumstances of the group that accepts them. Are you still awake?’

Eulalia nodded.

‘A large part of the mythology that develops around each of these doctrines, from its liturgy to its rules and taboos, comes from the bureaucracy generated as they develop and not from the supposed supernatural act that originated them. Most of the simple, wellintentioned anecdotes are a mixture of common sense and folklore, and all the belligerent force they eventually develop comes from a subsequent interpretation of those principles, or even their distortion, at the hands of bureaucrats. The administrative and hierarchic aspects seem to be crucial in the evolution of belief systems. The truth is first revealed to all men, but very quickly individuals appear claiming sole authority and a duty to interpret, administer and, if need be, alter this truth in the name of the common good. To this end they establish a powerful and potentially repressive organisation. This phenomenon, which biology shows us is common to any social group, soon transforms the doctrine into a means of achieving control and political power. Divisions, wars and break-ups become inevitable. Sooner or later, the word becomes flesh and the flesh bleeds.’

I thought I was beginning to sound like Corelli and I sighed. Eulalia gave a hesitant smile.

‘Is that what you’re looking for? Blood?’

‘It’s the caning that leads to learning, not the other way round.’

‘I wouldn’t be so sure.’

‘I have a feeling you went to a convent school.’

‘The Sisters of the Holy Infant Jesus. The black nuns. Eight years.’

‘Is it true what they say, that girls from convent schools are the ones who harbour the darkest and most unmentionable desires?’

‘I bet you’d love to find out.’

‘You can put all the chips on “yes”.’

‘What else have you learned in your crash course on theology?’

‘Not much else. My initial conclusions have left an unpleasant aftertaste – it’s so banal and inconsequential. All this seemed more or less evident already without the need to swallow whole encyclopedias and treatises on where to tickle angels – perhaps because I’m unable to understand anything beyond my own prejudices or because there is nothing else to understand and the crux of the matter lies in simply believing or not believing, without stopping to wonder why. How’s my rhetoric? Are you still impressed?’

‘It’s giving me goose pimples. A shame I didn’t meet you when I was a school girl with dark desires.’

‘You’re cruel, Eulalia.’

The librarian laughed heartily, looking me in the eye.

‘Tell me, Ignatius B., who has broken your heart and left you so angry?’

‘I see books aren’t the only things you read.’

We sat a while longer at the table, watching the waiters coming and going across the dining room of Casa Leopoldo.

‘Do you know the best thing about broken hearts?’ the librarian asked.

I shook my head.

‘They can only really break once. The rest is just scratches.’

‘Put that in your book.’

I pointed to her engagement ring.

‘I don’t know who the idiot is, but I hope he knows he’s the luckiest man in the world.’

Eulalia smiled a little sadly. We returned to the library and to our places: she went to her desk and I to my corner. I said goodbye to her the following day, when I decided that I couldn’t, and wouldn’t, read another line about revelations and eternal truths. On my way to the library I had bought her a white rose in one of the stalls on the Ramblas and I left it on her empty desk. I found her in one of the passages, sorting out some books.

‘Are you abandoning me so soon?’ she said when she saw me. ‘Who is going to flirt with me now?’

‘Who isn’t?’

She came with me to the exit and shook my hand at the top of the flight of stairs that led to the courtyard of the old hospital. Halfway down I stopped and turned round. She was still there, watching me.

‘Good luck, Ignatius B., I hope you find what you’re looking for.’

12

While I was having dinner with Isabella at the gallery table, I noticed my new assistant was casting me sidelong glances.

‘Don’t you like the soup? You haven’t touched it…’ the girl ventured.

I looked at the plate I had allowed to grow cold, took a spoonful and pretended I was tasting the most exquisite delicacy.

‘Delicious,’ I remarked.

‘And you haven’t said a word since you returned from the library,’ Isabella added.

‘Any other complaints?’

Isabella looked away, upset. I ate some of the cold soup with little appetite, as it gave me an excuse for not speaking.

‘Why are you so sad? Is it because of that woman?’

I went on stirring my spoon around in the soup. Isabella didn’t take her eyes off me.

‘Her name is Cristina,’ I said eventually. ‘And I’m not sad. I’m pleased for her because she’s married my best friend and she’s going to be very happy.’

‘And I’m the Queen of Sheba.’

‘You’re a busybody, that’s what you are.’

‘I prefer you like this, when you’re in a foul mood, because you tell the truth.’

‘Then let’s see how you like this: clear off to your room and leave me in peace, for Christ’s sake!’

She tried to smile, but by the time I stretched out my hand towards her, her eyes had filled with tears. She took my plate and hers and fled to the kitchen. I heard the plates falling into the sink and then a few moments later the door of her bedroom slammed shut. I sighed and savoured the glass of red wine left on the table, an exquisite vintage from Isabella’s parents’ shop. After a while I went along to her bedroom door and knocked gently. She didn’t reply, but I could hear her crying. I tried to open the door, but the girl had locked herself in.

I went up to the study, which after Isabella’s visit smelled of fresh flowers and looked like the cabin in a luxury cruiser. She had tidied up all the books, dusted and left everything shiny and unrecognisable. The old Underwood looked like a piece of sculpture and the letters on the keys were clearly visible again. A neat pile of paper, containing summaries of religious textbooks and catechisms, lay on the desk next to the day’s mail. A couple of cigars on a saucer emitted a delicious scent: Macanudos, one of the Caribbean delicacies supplied to Isabella’s father on the quiet by a contact in the state tobacco industry. I took one of them and lit it. It had an intense flavour that seemed to hold all the aromas and poisons a man could wish for in order to die in peace.

I sat at the desk and went through the day’s letters, ignoring them all except one: ochre parchment embellished with the writing I would have recognised anywhere. The missive from my new publisher and patron, Andreas Corelli, summoned me to meet him on Sunday, mid-afternoon, at the top of the main tower of the new cable railway that crossed the port of Barcelona.

The tower of San Sebastián stood one hundred metres high amid a jumble of cables and steel that induced vertigo just by looking at it. The service had been launched that same year to coincide with the International Exhibition, which had turned everything upside down and sown Barcelona with wonders. The cable railway crossed the docks from that first tower to a huge central structure reminiscent of the Eiffel Tower that served as the junction. From there the cable cars departed, suspended in mid-air, for the second part of the journey up to Montjuïc, where the heart of the exhibition was located. This technological marvel promised views of the city which until then had been the preserve only of airships, birds with a large wingspan, and hailstones. From my point of view, men and seagulls were not supposed to share the same airspace and as soon as I set foot in the lift that went up the tower I felt my stomach shrink to the size of a marble. The journey up seemed endless, the jolting of that brass capsule an exercise in pure nausea.

I found Corelli gazing through one of the large windows that looked out over the docks, his eyes lost among watercolours of sails and masts as they slid across the water. He wore a white silk suit and was toying with a sugar lump, which he then proceeded to swallow with an animal voracity. I cleared my throat and the boss turned round, smiling with pleasure.

‘A marvellous view, don’t you think?’

I nodded, white as a sheet.

‘You don’t like heights?’

‘I like to keep my feet on the ground as much as possible,’ I replied, maintaining a prudent distance from the window.

‘I’ve gone ahead and bought return tickets,’ he informed me.

‘What a kind thought.’

I followed him to the footbridge from which one stepped into the cars that departed from the tower and travelled, suspended a sickening height above the ground, for what looked like a horribly long time.

‘How did you spend the week, Martín?’

‘Reading.’

He glanced at me briefly.

‘By your bored expression I suspect it was not Alexandre Dumas.’

‘A collection of dandruffy academics and their leaden prose.’

‘Ah, intellectuals. And you wanted me to sign one up. Why is it that the less one has to say the more one says it, and in the most pompous and pedantic way possible?’ Corelli asked. ‘Is it to fool the world or just to fool themselves?’

‘Probably both.’

The boss handed me the tickets and signalled to me to go in first. I showed the tickets to the member of staff who held the cable-car door open and entered unenthusiastically. I decided to stand in the centre, as far as possible from the windows. Corelli smiled like an excited child.

‘Perhaps part of your problem is that you’ve been reading the commentators and not the people they were commenting on. A common mistake, but fatal when you’re trying to learn something,’ Corelli pointed out.

The doors closed and a sudden jerk sent us into orbit. I held onto a metal rail and took a deep breath.

‘I sense that scholars and theoreticians are no heroes of yours,’ I said.

‘I have no heroes, my friend, still less those who cover themselves or each other in glory. Theory is the practice of the impotent. I suggest that you put some distance between yourself and the encyclopedists’ accounts and go straight to the sources. Tell me, have you read the Bible?’

I hesitated for a moment. The cable car lurched on into the void. I looked at the floor.

‘Fragments here and there, I suppose,’ I mumbled.

‘You suppose. Like almost everyone. A serious mistake. Everyone should read the Bible. And reread it. Believers or non-believers, it doesn’t matter. I read it at least once a year. It’s my favourite book.’

‘And are you a believer or a sceptic?’ I asked.

‘I’m a professional. And so are you. What we believe, or don’t believe, is irrelevant as far as our work is concerned. To believe or to disbelieve is a faint-hearted act. Either one knows or one doesn’t. And that’s all there is to it.’

‘Then I confess that I don’t know anything.’

‘Follow that path and you’ll find the footsteps of the great philosopher. And along the way read the Bible from start to finish. It’s one of the greatest stories ever told. Don’t make the mistake of confusing the word of God with the missal industry that lives off it.’

The longer I spent in the company of the publisher, the less I understood him.

‘I’m quite lost. We were talking about legends and fables and now you’re telling me that I must think of the Bible as the word of God?’

A shadow of impatience and irritation clouded his eyes.

‘I’m speaking figuratively. God isn’t a charlatan. The word is human currency.’

He smiled at me the way one smiles at a child who cannot understand the most elemental things. As I observed the publisher, I realised that I found it impossible to know when he was talking seriously and when he was joking. As impossible as guessing at the purpose of the extravagant undertaking for which he was paying me such a princely sum. In the meantime the cable car was bobbing about like an apple on a tree lashed by a gale. Never had I thought so much about Isaac Newton.

‘You’re a yellow-belly, Martín. This machine is completely safe.’

‘I’ll believe it when I’m back on firm ground.’

We were nearing the midpoint of the journey, the tower of San Jaime that rose up from the docks near the large customs building.

‘Do you mind if we get off here?’ I asked.

Corelli shrugged his shoulders. I didn’t feel at ease until I was inside the tower’s lift and felt it touch the ground. When we walked out into the port we found a bench facing the sea and the slopes of Montjuïc. We sat down to watch the cable car flying high above us; me with a sense of relief, Corelli with longing.

‘Tell me about your first impressions. What have these days of intensive study and reading suggested to you?’

I proceeded to summarise what I thought I’d learned, or unlearned, during those days. The publisher listened attentively, nodding and occasionally gesticulating with his hands. At the end of my report about the myths and beliefs of human beings, Corelli gave a satisfactory verdict.

‘I think you’ve done an excellent work of synthesis. You haven’t found the proverbial needle in the haystack, but you’ve understood that the only thing that really matters in the whole pile of hay is the damned needle – the rest is just fodder for asses. Speaking of donkeys, tell me, are you interested in fables?’

‘When I was small, for about two months I wanted to be Aesop.’

‘We all give up great expectations along the way.’

‘What did you want to be as a child, Señor Corelli?’

‘God.’

He leered like a jackal, wiping the smile off my face.

‘Martín, fables are possibly one of the most interesting literary forms ever invented. Do you know what they teach us?’

‘Moral lessons?’

‘No. They teach us that human beings learn and absorb ideas and concepts through narrative, through stories, not through lessons or theoretical speeches. This is what any of the great religious texts teach us. They’re all tales about characters who must confront life and overcome obstacles, figures setting off on a journey of spiritual enrichment through exploits and revelations. All holy books are, above all, great stories whose plots deal with the basic aspects of human nature, setting them within a particular moral context and a particular framework of supernatural dogmas. I was content for you to spend a dismal week reading theses, speeches, opinions and comments so that you could discover for yourself that there is nothing to learn from them, because they’re nothing more than exercises in good or bad faith – usually unsuccessful – by people who are trying, in turn, to understand. The professorial conversations are over. From now on I’ll ask you to start reading the stories of the Brothers Grimm, the tragedies of Aeschylus, the Ramayana or the Celtic legends. Please yourself. I want you to analyse how these texts work, I want you to distil their essence and find out why they provoke an emotional reaction. I want you to learn the grammar, not the moral. And I want you to bring me something of your own in two or three weeks’ time, the beginning of a story. I want you to make me believe.’

‘I thought we were professionals and couldn’t commit the sin of believing in anything.’

Corelli smiled, baring his teeth.

‘One can only convert a sinner, never a saint.’

13

The days passed. Accustomed as I was to years of living alone and to that state of methodical and undervalued anarchy common to bachelors, the continued presence of a woman in the house, even though she was an unruly adolescent with a volatile temper, was beginning to play havoc with my daily routine. I believed in controlled disorder; Isabella didn’t. I believed that objects find their own place in the chaos of a household; Isabella didn’t. I believed in solitude and silence; Isabella didn’t. In just a couple of days I discovered that I was no longer able to find anything in my own home. If I was looking for a paperknife, or a glass, or a pair of shoes, I had to ask Isabella where providence had kindly inspired her to hide them.

‘I don’t hide anything. I put things in their place. Which is different.’

Not a day went by when I didn’t feel the urge to strangle her half a dozen times. When I took refuge in my study, searching for peace and quiet in which to think, Isabella would appear after a few minutes, a smile on her face, bringing me a cup of tea or some biscuits. She would wander around the study, look out of the window, tidy everything I had on my desk and then she would ask me what I was doing there, so quiet and mysterious. I discovered that seventeen-year-old girls have such huge verbal energy that their brain drives them to expend it every twenty seconds. On the third day I decided I had to find her a boyfriend – if possible a deaf one.

‘Isabella, how is it that a girl as attractive as you has no suitors?’

‘Who says I don’t?’

‘Isn’t there any boy you like?’

‘Boys my age are boring. They have nothing to say and half of them seem like complete idiots.’

I was going to say that they didn’t improve with age but didn’t want to spoil her illusions.

‘So what age do you like them?’

‘Old. Like you.’

‘Do I seem old to you?’

‘Well, you’re not exactly a spring chicken.’

It was preferable to think she was pulling my leg than to accept the punch below the belt that hurt my vanity. I decided to respond with a few drops of sarcasm.

‘The good news is that young girls like old men, and the bad news is that old men, especially decrepit, slobbering old men, like young girls.’

‘I know. I wasn’t born yesterday.’

Isabella observed me. She was scheming and smiled with a hint of malice.

‘Do you like young girls too?’

The answer was on my lips before she had asked the question. I adopted a masterful, impartial tone, like a professor of geography.

‘I liked them when I was your age. Now I generally like girls of my own age.’

‘At your age they’re no longer girls; they’re young women or, to be precise, ladies.’

‘End of argument. Have you nothing to do downstairs?’

‘No.’

‘Then start writing. You’re not here to wash the dishes and hide my things. You’re here because you said you wanted to learn to write and I’m the only idiot you know who can help you.’

‘There’s no need to get angry. It’s just that I lack inspiration.’

‘Inspiration comes when you stick your elbows on the table, your bottom on the chair and you start sweating. Choose a theme, an idea, and squeeze your brain until it hurts. That’s called inspiration.’

‘I have a topic.’

‘Hallelujah.’

‘I’m going to write about you.’

A long silence as we exchanged glances, like opponents across a game board.

‘Why?’

‘Because I find you interesting. And strange.’

‘And old.’

‘And touchy. Almost like a boy of my age.’

Despite myself I was beginning to get used to Isabella’s company, to her jibes and to the light she had brought into that house. If things continued this way, my worst fears were going to come true and we’d end up being friends.

‘What about you? Have you found a subject with all those whopping great tomes you’re consulting?’

I decided that the less I told Isabella about my commission, the better.

‘I’m still at the research stage.’

‘Research? And how does that work?’

‘Basically, you read thousands of pages to learn what you need to know and to get to the heart of a subject, to its emotional truth, and then you shed all that knowledge and start again at square one.’

Isabella sighed.

‘What is emotional truth?’

‘It’s sincerity within fiction.’

‘So, does one have to be an honest, good person to write fiction?’

‘No. One has to be skilled. Emotional truth is not a moral quality, it’s a technique.’

‘You sound like a scientist,’ protested Isabella.

‘Literature, at least good literature, is science tempered with the blood of art. Like architecture or music.’

‘I thought it was something that sprang from the artist, just like that, all of a sudden.’

‘The only things that spring all of a sudden are unwanted body hair and warts.’

Isabella considered these revelations without much enthusiasm.

‘You’re saying all this to discourage me and make me go home.’

‘I should be so lucky!’

‘You’re the worst teacher in the world.’

‘It’s the student who makes the teacher, not the other way round.’

‘It’s impossible to argue with you because you know all the rhetorical tricks. It’s not fair.’

‘Nothing is fair. The most one can hope is for things to be logical. Justice is a rare illness in a world that is otherwise a picture of health.’

‘Amen. Is that what happens as you grow older? Do people stop believing in things, as you have?’

‘No. Most people, as they grow old, continue to believe in nonsense, usually even greater nonsense. I swim against the tide because I like to annoy.’

‘Tell me something I don’t know! Well, when I’m older I’ll go on believing in things,’ Isabella threatened.

‘Good luck.’

‘And what’s more, I believe in you.’

She didn’t look away as I fixed my eyes on hers.

‘Because you don’t know me.’

‘That’s what you think. You’re not as mysterious as you imagine.’

‘I don’t pretend to be mysterious.’

‘That was a kind substitute for unpleasant. I also know a few rhetorical tricks.’

‘That isn’t rhetoric. It’s irony. They’re two different things.’

‘Do you always have to win every argument?’

‘When it’s as easy as this, yes.’

‘And that man, the boss…’

‘Corelli?’

‘Corelli. Does he make it easy for you?’

‘No. Corelli knows even more tricks than I do.’

‘That’s what I thought. Do you trust him?’

‘Why do you ask?’

‘I don’t know. Do you trust him?’

‘Why shouldn’t I trust him?’

Isabella shrugged her shoulders.

‘What exactly has he commissioned you to write? Aren’t you going to tell me?’

‘I told you. He wants me to write a book for his publishing company.’

‘A novel?’

‘Not exactly. More like a fable. A legend.’

‘A book for children?’

‘Something like that.’

‘And you’re going to do it?’

‘He pays very well.’

Isabella frowned.

‘Is that why you write? Because they pay you well?’

‘Sometimes.’

‘And this time?’

‘This time I’m going to write the book because I have to.’

‘Are in you debt to him?’

‘You could put it that way, I suppose.’

Isabella weighed up the matter. She was about to say something, but thought twice about it and bit her lip. Instead, she gave me an innocent smile and one of her angelic looks with which she was capable of changing the subject with a simple batting of her eyelids.

‘I’d also like to be paid to write,’ she said.

‘Anyone who writes would like the same, but it doesn’t mean that he or she will achieve it.’

‘And how do you achieve it?’

‘You begin by going down to the gallery, taking pen and paper-’

‘Digging your elbows in and squeezing your brain until it hurts. I know.’

She looked into my eyes, hesitating. She’d been staying in my house for a week and a half and I still showed no signs of sending her home. I imagined she was asking herself when I was going to do it, or why I hadn’t done it yet. I also asked myself that very question and could find no answer.

‘I like being your assistant, even if you are the way you are,’ she said at last.

The girl was staring at me as if her life depended on a kind word. I yielded to temptation. Good words are a vain benevolence that demand no sacrifice and are more appreciated than real acts of kindness.

‘I also like you being my assistant, Isabella, even if I am the way I am. And I will like it even more when there is no longer any need for you to be my assistant as you will have nothing more to learn from me.’

‘Do you think I have potential?’

‘I have no doubt whatsoever. In ten years you’ll be the teacher and I’ll be the apprentice,’ I said, repeating words that still tasted of treason.

‘You liar,’ she said, kissing me sweetly on the cheek before running off down the stairs.

14

That afternoon I left Isabella sitting at the desk we had set up for her in the gallery, facing her blank pages, while I went over to Gustavo Barceló’s bookshop on Calle Fernando hoping to find a good, readable edition of the Bible. All the sets of New and Old Testaments I had in the house were printed in microscopic type on thin, almost translucent onionskin paper and reading them, rather than bringing about fervour and divine inspiration, only induced migraines. Barceló, who among many other things was a persistent collector of holy books and apocryphal Christian texts, had a private room at the back of his shop filled with a formidable assortment of Gospels, lives of saints and holy people, and all kinds of other religious texts.

When I walked into the bookshop, one of the assistants rushed into the back-room office to alert the boss. Barceló emerged looking euphoric.

‘Bless my eyes! Sempere told me you’d been reborn, but this is quite something. Next to you, Valentino looks like someone just back from the salt mines. Where have you been hiding, you rogue?’

‘Oh, here and there,’ I said.

‘Everywhere except at Vidal’s wedding party. You were sorely missed, my friend.’

‘I doubt that.’

The bookseller nodded, implying that he understood my wish not to discuss the matter.

‘Will you accept a cup of tea?’

‘Or two. And a Bible. If possible, one that is easy to read.’

‘That won’t be a problem,’ said the bookseller. ‘Dalmau?’

The shop assistant called Dalmau came over obligingly.

‘Dalmau, our friend Martín here needs a Bible that is legible, not decorative. I’m thinking of Torres Amat, 1825. What do you think?’

One of the peculiarities of Barceló’s bookshop was that books were spoken about as if they were exquisite wines, catalogued by bouquet, aroma, consistency and vintage.

‘An excellent choice, Señor Barceló, although I’d be more inclined towards the updated and revised edition.’

‘Eighteen sixty?’

‘Eighteen ninety-three.’

‘Of course. That’s it! Wrap it up for our friend Martín and put it on the house.’

‘Certainly not,’ I objected.

‘The day I charge an unbeliever like you for the word of God will be the day I’m struck dead by lightning, and with good reason.’

Dalmau rushed off in search of my Bible and I followed Barceló into his office, where the bookseller poured two cups of tea and offered me a cigar from his humidor. I accepted it and lit it with the flame of the candle he handed me.

‘Macanudo?’

‘I see you’re educating your palate. A man must have vices, expensive ones if possible, otherwise when he reaches old age he will have nothing to be redeemed of. In fact, I’m going to have one with you. What the hell!’

A cloud of exquisite cigar smoke covered us like high tide.

‘I was in Paris a few months ago and took the opportunity to make some enquiries on the subject you talked about with our friend Sempere some time before,’ Barceló explained.

‘Éditions de la Lumière.’

‘Exactly. I wish I’d been able to scratch a little deeper, but unfortunately, after the publishing house closed down, nobody, it seems, bought its backlist, so it was difficult to gather much information.’

‘You say it closed? When?’

‘In 1914, if I’m not mistaken.’

‘There must be some mistake.’

‘Not if we’re talking about the same Éditions de la Lumière, on Boulevard Saint-Germain.’

‘That’s the one.’

‘In fact, I made a note of everything so I wouldn’t forget it when I saw you.’

Barceló looked in the drawer of his desk and pulled out a small notebook.

‘Here it is: “Éditions de la Lumière, publishing house specialising in religious texts with offices in Rome, Paris, London and Berlin. Founder and publisher, Andreas Corelli. Date of the opening of the first office in Paris, 1881-”’

‘Impossible,’ I muttered.

Barceló shrugged his shoulders.

‘Of course, I could have got it wrong, but-’

‘Did you get a chance to visit the offices?’

‘As a matter of fact, I did try, because my hotel was opposite the Panthéon, very close by, and the former offices of the publishing house were on the southern pavement of the boulevard, between Rue Saint-Jacques and Boulevard Saint-Michel.’

‘And?’

‘The building was empty, bricked up, and it looked as if there’d been a fire or something similar. The only thing that had remained intact was the door knocker, an exquisite object in the shape of an angel. Bronze, I think. I would have taken it, had there not been a gendarme watching me disapprovingly. I didn’t have the courage to provoke a diplomatic incident – heaven forbid France should decide to invade us again!’

‘With the way things are, they might be doing us a favour.’

‘Now that you mention it… But going back to the subject: when I saw what a state the place was in, I went to the café next door to make some enquiries and they told me the building had been like that for twenty years.’

‘Were you able to discover anything about the publisher?’

‘Corelli? From what I gathered, the publishing house closed when he decided to retire, although he can’t even have been fifty years old. I think he moved to a villa in the south of France, in the Luberon, and died shortly afterwards. They say a snake bit him. A viper. That’s what you get for retiring to Provence.’

‘Are you sure he died? ‘

‘Père Coligny, an old competitor of Corelli, showed me his death notice – he had it framed and treasures it like a trophy. He said he looks at it every day to remind himself that the damned bastard is dead and buried. His exact words, although in French they sounded much prettier and more musical.’

‘Did Coligny mention whether the publisher had any children?’

‘I got the impression that Corelli was not his favourite topic, because as soon as he could Coligny slipped away from me. It seems there was some scandal – Corelli stole one of his authors from him, someone called Lambert.’

‘What happened?’

‘The funniest thing about all this is that Coligny had never actually set eyes on Corelli. His only contact with him was by correspondence. The root of the problem, I think, was that Monsieur Lambert signed an agreement to write a book for Éditions de la Lumière behind Coligny’s back, when Coligny had sole rights to his work. Lambert was a terminal opium addict and had accumulated enough debts to pave Rue de Rivoli from end to end. Coligny suspected that Corelli had offered Lambert an astronomical sum and that the poor man, who was dying, had accepted it because he wanted to leave his children well provided for.’

‘What sort of book was it?’

‘Something with a religious content. Coligny mentioned the title, some fancy Latin expression that was fashionable at the time, but I can’t remember it now. As you know, the titles of missals all run in a similar vein. Pax Gloria Mundi or something like that.’

‘And what happened to the book and Lambert?’

‘That’s where matters become complicated. It seems that poor Lambert, in a fit of madness, wanted to burn his manuscript, so he set fire to it, and to himself, in the offices of the publishing house. A lot of people thought the opium had frazzled his brains, but Coligny suspected that it was Corelli who had pushed him towards suicide.’

‘Why would he want to do that?’

‘Who knows? Perhaps he didn’t want to pay him the sum he had promised? Perhaps it was all just Coligny’s fantasies – I’d say he was a great fan of Beaujolais twelve months a year. He told me that Corelli had tried to kill him in order to release Lambert from his contract and that Corelli only left him in peace when he decided to terminate the agreement with the author and let him go.’

‘Didn’t you say he’d never seen him?’

‘Exactly. I think Coligny must have been raving. When I visited him in his apartment I saw more crucifixes, madonnas and figures of saints than you’d find in a shop selling Christmas mangers. I got the impression that he wasn’t all that well in the head. When I left he told me to stay away from Corelli.’

‘But hadn’t he told you Corelli was dead?’

‘Ecco qua.’

I fell silent. Barceló looked at me with curiosity.

‘I have the feeling that my discoveries aren’t a huge surprise to you.’

I gave him a carefree smile, trying to make light of it all.

‘On the contrary. Thank you for taking the time to investigate.’

‘Not at all. Going to Paris in search of gossip is a pleasure in itself; you know me.’

Barceló tore the page with the information out of his notebook and handed it to me.

‘In case it’s of any use to you. I’ve noted down everything I was able to discover.’

I stood up and we shook hands. He came with me to the door, where Dalmau had the parcel ready for me.

‘How about a print of the Baby Jesus – one of those where he opens and closes his eyes depending how you look at it? Or one of the Virgin Mary surrounded by lambs: when you move it, they turn into cherubs with rosy cheeks. A wonder of stereoscopic technology.’

‘The revealed word is enough for the time being.’

‘Amen.’

I was grateful to the bookseller for his attempts to cheer me up, but as I walked away from the shop a cold anxiety began to invade me and I had the feeling that the streets and my destiny were set on nothing but quicksand.

15

On my way home I stopped by a stationer’s in Calle Argenteria to look at the shop window. On a sheet of fabric was a case containing a set of nibs, an ivory pen and a matching ink pot engraved with what looked like fairies or muses. There was something melodramatic about the whole set, as if it had been stolen from the writing desk of some Russian novelist, the sort who would bleed to death over thousands of pages. Isabella had beautiful handwriting that I envied, as pure and clear as her conscience, and the set seemed to have been made for her. I went in and asked the shop assistant to show it to me. The nibs were gold-plated and the whole business cost a small fortune, but I decided that it would be a good idea to repay my young assistant’s kindness and patience with this little gift. I asked the man to wrap it in bright purple paper with a ribbon the size of a carriage.

When I got home I was looking forward to the selfish satisfaction that comes from arriving with a gift in one’s hand. I was about to call Isabella as if she were a faithful pet with nothing better to do than wait devotedly for her master’s return, but what I saw when I opened the door left me speechless. The corridor was as dark as a tunnel. The door of the room at the other end was open, casting a square of flickering yellow light across the floor.

‘Isabella?’ I called out. My mouth was dry.

‘I’m here.’

The voice came from inside the room. I left the parcel on the hall table and walked down the corridor. I stopped in the doorway and looked inside. Isabella was sitting on the floor. She had placed a candle inside a tall glass and was earnestly devoting herself to her second vocation after literature: tidying up other people’s belongings.

‘How did you get in here?’

She smiled at me and shrugged her shoulders.

‘I was in the gallery and I heard a noise. I thought it was you coming back, but when I went into the corridor I saw that this door was open. I thought you’d told me it was locked.’

‘Get out of here. I don’t want you coming into this room. It’s very damp.’

‘Don’t be silly. With all the work there is to do here? Come on. Look at all the things I’ve found.’

I hesitated.

‘Here, come in.’

I stepped into the room and knelt down beside her. Isabella had separated all the items and boxes into categories: books, toys, photographs, clothes, shoes, spectacles. I looked at all the objects with a certain apprehension. Isabella seemed to be delighted, as if she’d discovered King Solomon’s mines.

‘Is all of this yours?’

I shook my head.

‘It belonged to the previous owner.’

‘Did you know him?’

‘No. It had all been here for years when I moved in.’

Isabella was holding a packet of letters and held it out to me as if it were evidence in a magistrate’s court.

‘Well, I think I’ve discovered his name.’

‘You don’t say.’

Isabella smiled, clearly delighted with her detective work.

‘Marlasca,’ she announced. ‘His name was Diego Marlasca. Don’t you think it’s odd?’

‘What?’

‘That his initials are the same as yours: D. M.’

‘It’s just a coincidence; tens of thousands of people in this town have the same initials.’

Isabella winked at me. She was really enjoying herself.

‘Look what else I’ve found.’

Isabella had salvaged a tin box full of old photographs. They were images from another age, postcards of old Barcelona, of pavilions that had been demolished in Ciudadela Park after the 1888 Universal Exhibition, of large crumbling houses and avenues full of people dressed in the ceremonious style of the time, of carriages and memories the colour of my childhood. Faces with absent expressions stared at me from thirty years back. In some of those photographs I thought I recognised the face of an actress who had been popular when I was a young boy and who had long since disappeared into obscurity. Isabella watched me in silence.

‘Do you remember her?’ she asked, after a time.

‘I think her name was Irene Sabino. She was quite a famous actress in the Paralelo theatres. This was a long time ago. Before you were born.’

‘Just look at this, then.’

Isabella handed me a photograph in which Irene Sabino appeared leaning against a window. It didn’t take me long to identify that window as the one in my study at the top of the tower.

‘Interesting, isn’t it?’ Isabella asked. ‘Do you think she lived here?’

I shrugged my shoulders.

‘Maybe she was Diego Marlasca’s lover…’

‘I don’t think that’s any of our business.’

‘Sometimes you’re so boring.’

Isabella put the photographs back in the box. As she did so, one of them slipped from her hands. The picture fell at my feet. I picked it up and examined it: Irene Sabino, wearing a dazzling black gown, posed with a group of people dressed for a party in what seemed to be the grand hall of the Equestrian Club. It was just a picture of a social gathering that wouldn’t have caught my eye had I not noticed in the background, almost blurred, a gentleman with white hair standing at the top of a staircase. Andreas Corelli.

‘You’ve gone pale,’ said Isabella.

She took the photograph from my hand and perused it silently. I stood up and made a sign to Isabella to leave the room.

‘I don’t want you to come in here again,’ I said weakly.

‘Why?’

I waited for her to leave the room and closed the door behind us. Isabella looked at me as if I wasn’t altogether sane.

‘Tomorrow you’ll call the Sisters of Charity and tell them to come and collect all this. They’re to take everything. What they don’t want, they can throw away.’

‘But-’

‘Don’t argue with me.’

I didn’t want to face her and went straight to the stairs that led up to the study. Isabella watched me from the corridor.

‘Who is that man, Señor Martín?’

‘Nobody,’ I murmured. ‘Nobody.’

16

I went up to the study. Night had fallen, but there was no moon or stars in the sky. I opened the windows and gazed at the city in shadows. Only a light breeze was blowing and the sweat tingled on my skin. I sat on the windowsill and lit the second of the cigars Isabella had left on my desk a few days before, waiting for a breath of fresh air or a more presentable idea than the collection of clichés with which I was supposed to begin work on the boss’s commission. I heard the shutters in Isabella’s bedroom open on the floor below. A rectangle of light fell across the courtyard, punctured by the profile of her silhouette. Isabella went up to her window and gazed into the darkness without noticing my presence. I watched her slowly undress. I saw her walk over to the mirror and examine her body, stroking her belly with the tips of her fingers and going over the cuts she had made on the inside of her arms and thighs. She looked at herself for a long time, wearing nothing but a defeated air, then turned off the light.

I went back to my desk and sat in front of the pile of notes. I went over sketches of stories full of mystic revelations and prophets who survived extraordinary trials and who returned bearing the revealed truth; of messianic infants abandoned at the doors of humble families with pure souls who were persecuted by evil, godless empires; of promised paradises for those who would accept their destiny and the rules of the game with a sporting spirit; and of idle, anthropomorphic deities with nothing better to do than keep a telepathic watch on the conscience of millions of fragile primates – primates who learned to think just in time to discover that they had been abandoned to their lot in a remote corner of the universe and whose vanity, or despair, made them slavishly believe that heaven and hell were eager to know about their paltry little sins.

I asked myself if this was what the boss had seen in me, a mercenary mind with no qualms about hatching a narcotic story fit for sending small children to sleep, or for convincing some poor hopeless devil to murder his neighbour in exchange for the eternal gratitude of some god who subscribed to the rule of the gun. Some days earlier another letter had arrived, requesting that I meet up with the boss to discuss the progress of my work. Setting aside my scruples, I realised that I had barely twenty-four hours before the meeting, and at the rate I was going I’d arrive with my hands empty but with my head full of doubts and suspicions. Since there was no alternative, I did what I’d done for so many years in similar circumstances. I placed a sheet of paper in the Underwood and, with my hands poised on the keyboard like a pianist waiting for the beat, I began to squeeze my brain to see what would come out.

17

‘Interesting,’ the boss pronounced when he’d finished the tenth and last page. ‘Strange, but interesting.’

We were sitting on a bench in the gilded haze of the Shade House in Ciudadela Park. A vault of wooden strips filtered the sun until it was reduced to a golden shimmer, and all around us a garden of plants shaped the play of light and dark in the peculiar, luminous gloom. I lit a cigarette and watched the smoke rise from my fingers in blue spirals.

‘Coming from you, strange is a disturbing adjective,’ I noted.

‘I meant strange as opposed to vulgar,’ Corelli specified.

‘But?’

‘There are no buts, Martín. I think you’ve found an interesting route with a lot of potential.’

For a novelist, when someone comments that their pages are interesting and have potential, it is a sign that things aren’t going well. Corelli seemed to read my anxiety.

‘You’ve turned the question round. Instead of going straight for the mythological references you’ve started with the more prosaic. May I ask where you got the idea of a warrior messiah instead of a peaceful one?’

‘You mentioned biology.’

‘Everything we need to know is written in the great book of nature,’ Corelli agreed. ‘We only need the courage and the mental and spiritual clarity with which to read it.’

‘One of the books I consulted explained that among humans the male attains the plenitude of his fertility at the age of seventeen. The female attains it later and preserves it, and somehow acts as selector and judge of the genes she agrees to reproduce. The male, on the other hand, simply offers himself and wastes away much faster. The age at which he reaches his maximum reproductive strength is also when his combative spirit is at its peak. A young man is the perfect soldier. He has great potential for aggression and a limited critical capacity – or none at all – with which to analyse it and judge how to channel it. Throughout history, societies have found ways of using this store of aggression, turning their adolescents into soldiers, cannon fodder with which to conquer their neighbours or defend themselves against their aggressors. Something told me that our protagonist was an envoy from heaven, but an envoy who, in the first flush of youth, took arms and liberated truth with blows of iron.’

‘Have you decided to mix history with biology, Martín?’

‘From what you said, I understood them to be one and the same thing.’

Corelli smiled. I don’t know whether he was aware of it, but when he smiled he looked like a hungry wolf. I swallowed hard and tried to ignore the goose pimples.

‘I’ve given this some thought,’ I said, ‘and I realised that most of the great religions were either born or reached their apogee at a time when the societies that adopted them had a younger and poorer demographic base. Societies in which 70 per cent of the population was under the age of eighteen – half of them men with their veins bursting with violence and the urge to procreate – were perfect breeding grounds for an acceptance and explosion of faith.’

‘That’s an oversimplification, but I see where you’re going, Martín.’

‘I know. But with these general ideas in mind, I asked myself: why not get straight to the point and establish a mythology around this warrior messiah? A messiah full of blood and anger, who saves his people, his genes, his womenfolk and his patriarchs from the political and racial dogma of his enemies, that is to say, from anyone who does not subject himself to his doctrine.’

‘What about the adults?’

‘We’ll get to the adult by having recourse to his frustration. As life advances and we have to give up the hopes, dreams and desires of our youth, we acquire a growing sense of being a victim of the world and of other people. There is always someone else to blame for our misfortunes or failures, someone we wish to exclude. Embracing a doctrine that will turn this grudge and this victim mentality into something positive provides comfort and strength. The adult then feels part of the group and sublimates his lost desires and hopes through the community.’

‘Perhaps,’ Corelli granted. ‘What about all this iconography of death and the flags and shields? Don’t you find it counterproductive? ’

‘No. I think it’s essential. Clothes maketh the man, but above all, they maketh the churchgoer.’

‘And what do you say about women, the other half? I’m sorry, but I find it hard to imagine a substantial number of women in a society believing in pennants and shields. Boy Scout psychology is for children.’

‘The main pillar of every organised religion, with few exceptions, is the subjugation, repression, even the annulment of women in the group. Woman must accept the role of an ethereal, passive and maternal presence, never of authority or independence, or she will have to take the consequences. She might have a place of honour in the symbolism, but not in the hierarchy. Religion and war are male pursuits. And anyhow, woman sometimes ends up becoming the accomplice in her own subjugation.’

‘And the aged?’

‘Old age is the lubricant of belief. When death knocks at the door, scepticism flies out of the window. A serious cardiovascular fright and a person will even believe in Little Red Riding Hood.’

Corelli laughed.

‘Careful, Martín, I think you’re becoming more cynical than I am.’

I looked at him as if I were an obedient pupil anxious for the approval of a demanding teacher. Corelli patted me on the knee, nodding with satisfaction.

‘I like it. I like the flair of it. I want you to go on turning things round and finding a shape. I’m going to give you more time. We’ll meet in two or three weeks. I’ll let you know a few days beforehand.’

‘Do you have to leave the city?’

‘Business matters concerning the publishing house. I’m afraid I have a few days of travel ahead of me, but I’m going away contented. You’ve done a good job. I knew I’d found my ideal candidate.’

The boss stood up and put out his hand. I dried the sweat from my palm on my trouser leg and we shook hands.

‘You’ll be missed,’ I began.

‘Don’t exaggerate, Martín; you were doing very well.’

I watched him leave in the haze of the Shade House, the echo of his steps fading away into the shadows. I remained there a good while, wondering whether the boss had risen to the bait and swallowed the pile of tall stories I’d given him. I was sure that I’d told him exactly what he wanted to hear. I hoped so, and I also hoped that the string of nonsense would keep him satisfied for the time being, convinced that his servant, the poor failed novelist, had become a convert. I told myself that anything that could buy me more time in which to discover what I had got myself into was worth a try. When I stood up and left the Shade House, my hands were still shaking.

18

Years of experience writing thrillers provide one with a set of principles on which to base an investigation. One of them is that all moderately solid plots, including those seemingly about affairs of passion, are born from the unmistakable whiff of money and property. When I left the Shade House I walked to the Land Registry in Calle Consejo de Ciento and asked whether I could consult the records in which the sales, purchase and ownership of my house were listed. Books in the Land Registry archive contain almost as much information on the realities of life as the complete works of the most respected philosophers – if not more.

I began by looking up the section containing the details of my lease of number 30, Calle Flassaders. There I found the necessary data with which to trace the history of the property before the Banco Hispano Colonial took ownership in 1911, as part of the appropriation of the Marlasca family assets – apparently the family had inherited the building upon the death of the owner. A lawyer named S. Valera was mentioned as having represented the family. Another leap into the past allowed me to find information relating to the purchase of the building by Don Diego Marlasca Pongiluppi in 1902 from a certain Bernabé Massot y Caballé. I made a note of all this on a slip of paper, from the name of the lawyer and all those taking part in the transactions to the relevant dates.

One of the clerks announced in a loud voice that there were fifteen minutes to closing time so I got ready to leave, but before that I hurriedly tried to consult the records for Andreas Corelli’s house next to Güell Park. After fifteen minutes of searching in vain, I looked up from the register and met the ashen eyes of the clerk. He was an emaciated character, gel shining on moustache and hair, oozing that belligerent apathy of those who turn their job into a platform for obstructing the life of others.

‘I’m sorry. I can’t find a property,’ I said.

‘That must be because it doesn’t exist or because you don’t know how to search properly. We’ve closed for today.’

I repaid his kindness and efficiency with my best smile.

‘I might find it with your expert help,’ I suggested.

He gave me a nauseous look and snatched the volume from my hands.

‘Come back tomorrow.’

My next stop was the ostentatious building of the Bar Association in Calle Mallorca, only a few streets away. Beneath a series of glass chandeliers, I climbed the wide steps that were guarded by what looked like a statue of Justice but with the bosom and attitude of a Paralelo starlet. When I reached the secretary’s office, a small, mousy-looking man welcomed me and asked how he could help.

‘I’m looking for a lawyer.’

‘You’ve come to the right place. We don’t know how to get rid of them here. There seem to be more every day. They multiply like rabbits.’

‘It’s the modern world. The one I’m looking for is called, or was called, Valera, S. Valera, with a V.’

The little man disappeared into a labyrinth of filing cabinets, muttering under his breath. I waited, leaning on the counter, my eyes wandering over a decor infused with the inexorable weight of the law. Five minutes later the man returned with a folder.

‘I’ve found ten Valeras. Two with an S. Sebastián and Soponcio.’

‘Soponcio?’

‘You’re very young, but years ago this was a name with a certain cachet, and ideal for the legal profession. Then along came the Charleston and ruined everything.’

‘Is Don Soponcio still alive?’

‘According to the folder and the date he stopped paying his membership of this association, Soponcio Valera y Menacho was received into the glory of Our Lord in the year 1919. Memento mori. Sebastián is his son.’

‘Still practising?’

‘Fully, and constantly. I sense you will want the address.’

‘If it’s not too much trouble.’

The little man wrote it down on a small piece of paper which he handed to me.

‘Number 442, Diagonal. It’s just a stone’s throw away. But it’s two o’clock, and by now most top lawyers will be at lunch with rich widows or manufacturers of fabrics and explosives. I’d wait until four o’clock.’

I put the address in my jacket pocket.

‘I’ll do that. Thank you for your help.’

‘That’s what we’re here for. God bless.’

I had a couple of hours to kill before paying a visit to Señor Valera, so I took a tram down Vía Layetana and got off when it reached Calle Condal. The Sempere & Sons bookshop was just a step away and I knew from experience that – contravening the immutable tradition of local shops – the old bookseller didn’t close at midday. I found him, as usual, standing at the counter, cataloguing books and serving a large group of customers who were wandering around the tables and bookshelves hunting for treasure. He smiled when he saw me and came over to say hello. He looked thinner and paler than the last time I’d seen him. He must have noticed my anxiety because he shrugged his shoulders as if to make light of the matter.

‘Some win; others lose. You’re looking fit and well and I’m all skin and bones, as you can see,’ he said.

‘Are you all right?’

‘Fresh as a daisy. It’s the damned angina. Nothing serious. What brings you here, Martín, my friend?’

‘I thought I’d take you out to lunch.’

‘Thank you, but I can’t abandon ship. My son has gone to Sarriá to appraise a collection and business isn’t so good that we can afford to close the shop when there are customers about.’

‘Don’t tell me you’re having financial problems.’

‘This is a bookshop, Martín, not an investment broker’s. The world of letters provides us with just enough to get by, and sometimes not even that.’

‘If you need help…’

Sempere held up his hand.

‘If you want to help me, buy a book or two.’

‘You know that the debt I owe you can never be repaid with money.’

‘All the more reason not even to think about it. Don’t worry about us, Martín. The only way they’ll get me out of here is in a pine box. But if you like, you can come and share a tasty meal of bread, raisins and fresh Burgos cheese. With that, and the Count of Montecristo, anyone can live to be a hundred.’

19

Sempere hardly tasted his food. He smiled wearily and pretended to be interested in my comments, but I could see that from time to time he was having trouble breathing.

‘Tell me, Martín, what are you working on?’

‘It’s difficult to explain. A book I’ve been commissioned to write.’

‘A novel?’

‘Not exactly. I wouldn’t know how to describe it.’

‘What’s important is that you’re working. I’ve always said that idleness dulls the spirit. We have to keep the brain busy, or at least the hands if we don’t have a brain.’

‘But some people work more than is reasonable, Señor Sempere. Shouldn’t you take a break? How many years have you been here, always hard at work, never stopping?’

Sempere looked around him.

‘This place is my life, Martín. Where else would I go? To a sunny bench in the park, to feed pigeons and complain about my rheumatism? I’d be dead in ten minutes. My place is here. And my son isn’t ready to take up the reins of the business, even if he thinks he is.’

‘But he’s a good worker. And a good person.’

‘Between you and me, he’s too good a person. Sometimes I look at him and wonder what will become of him the day I go. How is he going to cope…? ’

‘All fathers say that, Señor Sempere.’

‘Did yours? Forgive me, I didn’t mean to…’

‘Don’t worry. My father had enough worries of his own without having to worry about me as well. I’m sure your son has more experience than you think.’

Sempere looked dubious.

‘Do you know what I think he lacks?’

‘Malice?’

‘A woman.’

‘He’ll have no shortage of girlfriends with all the turtle doves who cluster round the shop window to admire him.’

‘I’m talking about a real woman, the sort who makes you become what you’re supposed to be.’

‘He’s still young. Let him have fun for a few more years.’

‘That’s a good one! If he’d at least have some fun. At his age, if I’d had that chorus of young girls after me, I’d have sinned like a cardinal.’

‘The Lord gives bread to the toothless.’

‘That’s what he needs: teeth. And a desire to bite.’

Something else seemed to be going round his mind. He was looking at me and smiling.

‘Maybe you could help…’

‘Me?’

‘You’re a man of the world, Martín. And don’t give me that expression. I’m sure that if you apply yourself you’ll find a good woman for my son. He already has a pretty face. You can teach him the rest.’

I was speechless.

‘Didn’t you want to help me?’ the bookseller asked. ‘Well, there you are.’

‘I was talking about money.’

‘And I’m talking about my son, the future of this house. My whole life.’

I sighed. Sempere took my hand and pressed it with what little strength he had left.

‘Promise you’ll not allow me to leave this world before I’ve seen my son set up with a woman worth dying for. And who’ll give me a grandson.’

‘If I’d known this was coming, I’d have stayed at the Novedades Café for lunch.’

Sempere smiled.

‘Sometimes I think you should have been my son, Martín.’

I looked at the bookseller, who seemed more fragile and older than ever before, barely a shadow of the strong, impressive man I remembered from my childhood days, and I felt the world crumbling around me. I went up to him and, before I realised it, did what I’d never done in all the years I’d known him. I gave him a kiss on his forehead, which was spotted with freckles and touched by a few grey hairs.

‘Do you promise?’

‘I promise,’ I said, as I walked to the door.

20

Señor Valera’s office occupied the top floor of an extravagant modernist building located at number 442 Avenida Diagonal, just round the corner from Paseo de Gracia. For want of a better description, the building looked like a cross between a giant grandfather clock and a pirate ship, and was adorned with huge French windows and a roof with green dormers. In any other part of the world the baroque and Byzantine structure would have been proclaimed either as one of the seven wonders of the world or as the freakish creation of a mad artist who was possessed by demons. In Barcelona’s Ensanche quarter, where similar buildings cropped up everywhere, like clover after rain, it barely raised an eyebrow.

I walked into the hallway and was shown to a lift that reminded me of something a giant spider might have left behind, if it were weaving cathedrals instead of cobwebs. The doorman opened the cabin and imprisoned me in the strange capsule that began to rise through the middle of the stairwell. A severe-looking secretary opened the carved oak door at the top and showed me in. I gave her my name and explained that I had not made an appointment, but that I was there to discuss a matter relating to the sale of a building in the Ribera quarter. Something changed in her expression.

‘The tower house?’ she asked.

I nodded. The secretary led me to an empty office. I sensed that this was not the official waiting room.

‘Please wait, Señor Martín. I’ll let Señor Valera know you’re here.’

I spent the next forty-five minutes in that office, surrounded by bookshelves that were packed with volumes the size of tombstones, bearing inscriptions on the spines such as ‘1888-1889, B.C.A. Section One. Second title’. It seemed like irresistible reading matter. The office had a large window looking onto Avenida Diagonal that provided an excellent view over the city. The furniture smelled of fine wood, weathered and seasoned with money. Carpets and leather armchairs were reminiscent of those in a British club. I tried to lift one of the lamps presiding over the desk and guessed that it must weigh at least thirty kilos. A huge oil painting, resting over a hearth that had never been used, portrayed the rotund and expansive presence of none other than Don Soponcio Valera y Menacho. The titanic lawyer sported moustaches and sideburns like the mane of an old lion, and his stern eyes, with the fire and steel of a hanging judge, dominated every corner of the room from the great beyond.

‘He doesn’t speak, but if you stare at the portrait for a while he looks as if he might do so at any moment,’ said a voice behind me.

I hadn’t heard him come in. Sebastián Valera was a man with a quiet gait who looked as if he’d spent the best part of his life trying to crawl out from under his father’s shadow and now, at fifty-plus, was tired of trying. He had penetrating and intelligent eyes, and that exquisite manner only enjoyed by royal princesses and the most expensive lawyers. He offered me his hand and I shook it.

‘I’m sorry to have kept you waiting, but I wasn’t expecting your visit,’ he said, pointing to a seat.

‘Not at all. Thank you for receiving me.’

Valera gave me the smile of someone who knows how much he charges for every minute.

‘My secretary tells me your name is David Martín. You’re David Martín, the author?’

The look of surprise must have given me away.

‘I come from a family of great readers,’ he explained. ‘How can I help?’

‘I’d like to ask you about the ownership of a building in-’

‘The tower house?’ the lawyer interrupted politely.

‘Yes.’

‘You know it?’ he asked.

‘I live there.’

Valera looked at me for a while without abandoning his smile. He straightened up in his chair and seemed to go tense.

‘Are you the present owner?’

‘Actually I rent the place.’

‘And what is it you’d like to know, Señor Martín?’

‘If possible, I’d like to know about the acquisition of the building by the Banco Hispano Colonial and gather some information on the previous owner.’

‘Don Diego Marlasca,’ the lawyer muttered. ‘May I ask what is the nature of your interest?’

‘Personal. Recently, while I was doing some refurbishment on the building, I came across a number of items that I think belonged to him.’

The lawyer frowned.

‘Items?’

‘A book. Or, rather, a manuscript.’

‘Señor Marlasca was a great lover of literature. In fact, he was the author of a large number of books on law, and also on history and other subjects. A great scholar. And a great man, although at the end of his life there were those who wished to tarnish his reputation.’

My surprise must have been evident.

‘I assume you’re not familiar with the circumstances surrounding Señor Marlasca’s death.’

‘I’m afraid not.’

Valera sighed, as if he were debating whether or not to go on.

‘You’re not going to write about this, are you, or about Irene Sabino?’

‘No.’

‘Do I have your word?’

I nodded.

‘You couldn’t say anything that wasn’t already said at the time, I suppose,’ Valera muttered, more to himself than to me.

The lawyer looked briefly at his father’s portrait and then fixed his eyes on me.

‘Diego Marlasca was my father’s partner and his best friend. Together they founded this law firm. Señor Marlasca was a brilliant lawyer. Unfortunately he was also a very complicated man, subject to long periods of melancholy. There came a time when my father and Señor Marlasca decided to dissolve their partnership. Señor Marlasca left the legal profession to devote himself to his first vocation: writing. They say most lawyers secretly wish to leave the profession and become writers-’

‘Until they compare the salaries.’

‘The fact is that Don Diego had struck up a friendship with Irene Sabino, quite a popular actress at the time, for whom he wanted to write a play. That was all. Señor Marlasca was a gentleman and was never unfaithful to his wife, but you know what people are like. Gossip. Rumours and jealousy. Anyhow, word got round that Don Diego was having an affair with Irene Sabino. His wife never forgave him for it, and the couple separated. Señor Marlasca was shattered. He bought the tower house and moved in. Sadly, he’d only been living there for a year when he died in an unfortunate accident.’

‘What sort of accident?’

‘Señor Marlasca drowned. It was a tragedy.’

Valera lowered his eyes and sighed.

‘And the scandal?’

‘Let’s just say there were evil tongues who wanted people to believe that Señor Marlasca had committed suicide after an unhappy love affair with Irene Sabino.’

‘And was that so?’

Valera removed his spectacles and rubbed his eyes.

‘To tell you the truth, I’m not sure. I don’t know and I don’t care. What happened, happened.’

‘What became of Irene Sabino?’

Valera put his glasses on again.

‘I thought you were only interested in Señor Marlasca and the ownership of the house.’

‘It’s simple curiosity. Among Señor Marlasca’s belongings I found a number of photographs of Irene Sabino, as well as letters from her to Señor Marlasca-’

‘What are you getting at?’ Valera snapped. ‘Is it money you want?’

‘No.’

‘I’m glad, because nobody is going to give you any. Nobody cares about the subject any more. Do you understand?’

‘Perfectly, Señor Valera. I had no intention of bothering you or insinuating that anything was out of place. I’m sorry if I offended you with my questions.’

The lawyer smiled and let out a gentle sigh, as if the conversation had already ended.

‘It doesn’t matter. I’m the one who should apologise.’

Taking advantage of the lawyer’s conciliatory tone, I put on my sweetest expression.

‘Perhaps his widow…’

Valera shrunk into his armchair, visibly uncomfortable.

‘Doña Alicia Marlasca? Señor Martín, please don’t misunderstand me, but part of my duty as the family lawyer is to preserve their privacy. For obvious reasons. A lot of time has gone by, and I wouldn’t like to see old wounds reopened unnecessarily.’

‘I understand.’

The lawyer was looking at me tensely.

‘And you say you found a book?’ he asked.

‘Yes… a manuscript. It’s probably not important.’

‘Probably not. What was the work about?’

‘Theology, I’d say.’

Valera nodded.

‘Does that surprise you?’

‘No. On the contrary. Diego was an authority on the history of religion. A learned man. In this firm he is still remembered with great affection. Tell me, what particular aspects of the history of the property are you interested in?’

‘I think you’ve already helped me a great deal, Señor Valera. I wouldn’t like to take up any more of your time.’

The lawyer nodded, looking relieved.

‘It’s the house, isn’t it?’ he asked.

‘A strange place, yes,’ I agreed.

‘I remember going there once when I was young, shortly after Don Diego bought it.’

‘Do you know why he bought it?’

‘He said he’d been fascinated with it ever since he was a child and had always thought he’d like to live there. Don Diego was like that. Sometimes he acted like a young boy who would give everything up in exchange for a dream.’

I didn’t say anything.

‘Are you all right?’

‘Yes, fine. Do you know anything about the owner from whom Señor Marlasca bought the house? Someone called Bernabé Massot?’

‘He’d made his money in the Americas. He didn’t spend more than an hour in the house. He bought it when he returned from Cuba and kept it empty for years. He didn’t say why. He lived in a mansion he had built in Arenys de Mar and sold the tower house for tuppence. He didn’t want to have anything to do with it.’

‘And before him?’

‘I think a priest lived there. A Jesuit. I’m not sure. My father was the person who took care of Don Diego’s business and when the latter died, he burned all of the files.’

‘Why would he do that?’

‘Because of all the things I’ve told you. To avoid rumours and preserve the memory of his friend, I suppose. The truth is, he never told me. My father was not the sort of man to offer explanations, but he must have had his reasons. Good reasons, I’m sure. Diego had been a good friend to him, as well as being his partner, and all of it was very painful for my father.’

‘What happened to the Jesuit?’

‘I believe he had disciplinary issues with the order. He was a friend of Father Cinto Verdaguer, and I think he was mixed up in some of his problems, if you know what I mean.’

‘Exorcisms?’

‘Gossip.’

‘How could a Jesuit who had been thrown out of the order afford a house like that?’

Valera shrugged his shoulders and I sensed that I was scraping the bottom of the barrel.

‘I’d like to be of further help, Señor Martín, but I don’t know how. Believe me.’

‘Thank you for your time, Señor Valera.’

The lawyer nodded and pressed a bell on the desk. The secretary who had greeted me appeared in the doorway. Valera stretched out his hand and I shook it.

‘Señor Martín is leaving. See him to the door, Margarita.’

The secretary inclined her head and led the way. Before leaving the office I turned round to look at the lawyer, who was standing crestfallen beneath his father’s portrait. I followed Margarita out to the main door but just as she was about to close it I turned and gave her the most innocent of smiles.

‘Excuse me. Señor Valera just gave me Señora Marlasca’s address, but now that I think of it I’m not sure I remember the house number correctly…’

Margarita sighed, anxious to be rid of me.

‘It’s 13. Carretera de Vallvidrera, number 13.’

‘Of course.’

‘Good afternoon,’ said Margarita.

Before I was able to say goodbye, the door was slammed in my face with the solemnity of a holy sepulchre.

21

When I returned to the tower house, I looked with different eyes at the building that had been my home and my prison for too many years. I went through the front door feeling as if I was entering the jaws of a being made of stone and shadow, and ascended the wide staircase, penetrating the bowels of this creature; when I opened the door of the main floor, the long corridor that faded into darkness seemed, for the first time, like the antechamber of a poisoned and distrustful mind. At the far end, outlined against the scarlet twilight that filtered through from the gallery, was the silhouette of Isabella advancing towards me. I closed the door and turned on the light.

Isabella had dressed as a refined young lady, with her hair up and a few touches of make-up that made her look ten years older.

‘You’re looking very attractive and elegant,’ I said coldly.

‘Like a girl your age, don’t you think? Do you like the dress?’

‘Where did you find it?’

‘It was in one of the trunks in the room at the end. I think it belonged to Irene Sabino. What do you think? Doesn’t it fit me well?’

‘I told you to get someone to take everything away.’

‘And I did. This morning I went to the parish church but they told me they couldn’t collect, and we’d have to take it to them ourselves.’

I looked at her but didn’t say anything.

‘It’s the truth,’ she added.

‘Take that off and put it back where you found it. And wash your face. You look like-’

‘A tart?’ Isabella completed.

I shook my head and sighed.

‘No. You could never look like a tart, Isabella.’

‘Of course. That’s why you don’t fancy me,’ she muttered, turning round and heading for her room.

‘Isabella,’ I called.

She ignored me.

‘Isabella,’ I repeated, raising my voice.

She threw me a hostile glance before slamming the bedroom door shut. I heard her beginning to move things about. I walked over to the door and rapped with my knuckles. There was no reply. I rapped again. Not a word. I opened the door and found her gathering the few things she’d brought with her and putting them in her bag.

‘What are you doing?’ I asked.

‘I’m leaving, that’s what I’m doing. I’m going and I’m leaving you in peace. Or in war, because with you one never knows.’

‘May I ask where you’re going?’

‘What do you care? Is that a rhetorical or an ironic question? It’s obvious that you don’t give a damn about anything, but as I’m such an idiot I can’t tell the difference.’

‘Isabella, wait a moment…’

‘Don’t worry about the dress, I’m taking it off right now. And you can return the nibs, because I haven’t used them and I don’t like them. They’re kitsch and childish.’

I moved closer and put a hand on her shoulder. She jumped away as if a snake had brushed against her.

‘Don’t touch me.’

I withdrew to the doorway in silence. Isabella’s hands and lips were shaking.

‘Isabella, forgive me. Please. I didn’t mean to offend you.’

She looked at me with tears in her eyes and gave a bitter smile.

‘You’ve done nothing but that. Ever since I got here. You’ve done nothing but insult me and treat me as if I were a poor idiot who didn’t understand a thing.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I repeated. ‘Leave your things. Don’t go.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because I’m asking you, please, not to go.’

‘If I need pity and charity, I can find it elsewhere.’

‘It’s not pity, or charity, unless that’s what you feel for me. I’m asking you to stay because I’m the idiot here, and I don’t want to be alone. I can’t be alone.’

‘Great. Always thinking of others. Buy yourself a dog.’

She let the bag fall on the bed and faced me, drying her tears as the pent-up anger slowly dissipated.

‘Well then, since we’re playing at telling the truth, let me tell you that you’re always going to be alone. You’ll be alone because you don’t know how to love or how to share. You’re like this house: it makes my hair stand on end. I’m not surprised your lady in white left you, or that everyone else has too. You don’t love and you don’t allow yourself to be loved.’

I stared at her, crushed, as if I’d just been given a beating and didn’t know where the blows had come from. I searched for words but could only stammer.

‘Is it true you don’t like the pen set?’ I managed at last.

Isabella rolled her eyes, exhausted.

‘Don’t look at me like a beaten dog. I might be stupid, but not that stupid.’

I didn’t reply but remained leaning against the doorframe. Isabella observed me with an expression somewhere between suspicion and pity.

‘I didn’t mean to say what I said about your friend, the one in the photographs. I’m sorry,’ she mumbled.

‘Don’t apologise. It’s the truth.’

I left the room, eyes downcast, and took refuge in the study, where I gazed at the dark city buried in mist. After a while I heard her hesitant footsteps on the staircase.

‘Are you up there?’ she called out.

‘Yes.’

Isabella came into the room. She had changed her clothes and washed the tears from her face. She smiled and I smiled back at her.

‘Why are you like that?’

I shrugged my shoulders. Isabella came over and sat next to me, on the windowsill. We enjoyed the play of silences and shadows over the rooftops of the old town. After a while, she grinned at me and said, ‘What if we were to light one of those cigars my father gives you and share it?’

‘Certainly not.’

Isabella sank back into silence, but every now and then she glanced at me and smiled. I watched her out of the corner of my eye and realised that just by looking at her it was easier to believe there might be something good and decent left in this lousy world and, with luck, in myself.

‘Are you staying?’ I asked.

‘Give me a good reason why I should. An honest reason. In other words, coming from you, a selfish one. And it had better not be a load of drivel or I’ll leave right away.’

She barricaded herself behind a defensive look, waiting for one of my usual flattering remarks, and for a moment she seemed to be the only person in the world to whom I couldn’t and didn’t wish to lie. I looked down and for once I spoke the truth, even if it was only to hear it myself.

‘Because you’re the only friend I have left.’

The hard expression in her eyes disappeared, and before I could discern any pity, I looked away.

‘What about Señor Sempere and that pedant, Barceló?’

‘You’re the only one who has dared tell me the truth.’

‘What about your friend, the boss, doesn’t he tell you the truth?’

‘The boss is not my friend. And I don’t think he’s ever told the truth in his entire life.’

Isabella looked at me closely.

‘You see? I knew you didn’t trust him. I noticed it in your face from the very first day.’

I tried to recover some of my dignity, but all I found was sarcasm.

‘Have you added face-reading to your list of talents?’

‘You don’t need any talent to read a face like yours,’ Isabella retorted. ‘It’s like reading Tom Thumb.’

‘And what else can you read in my face, dearest fortune-teller?’

‘That you’re scared.’

I tried to laugh without much enthusiasm.

‘Don’t be ashamed of being scared. To be afraid is a sign of common sense. Only complete idiots are not afraid of anything. I read that in a book.’

‘The coward’s handbook?’

‘You needn’t admit it if it’s going to undermine your sense of masculinity. I know you men believe that the size of your stubbornness should match the size of your privates.’

‘Did you also read that in your book?’

‘No, that wisdom’s homemade.’

I let my hands fall, surrendering in the face of the evidence.

‘All right. Yes, I admit that I do feel a vague sense of anxiety.’

‘You’re the one who’s being vague. You’re scared stiff. Admit it.’

‘Don’t get things out of proportion. Let’s say that I have some reservations concerning my publisher, which, given my experience, is understandable. As far as I know, Corelli is a perfect gentleman and our professional relationship will be fruitful and positive for both parties.’

‘That’s why your stomach rumbles every time his name crops up.’

I sighed. I had no arguments left.

‘What can I say, Isabella?’

‘That you’re not going to work for him any more.’

‘I can’t do that.’

‘And why not? Can’t you just give him back his money and send him packing?’

‘It’s not that simple.’

‘Why not? Have you got yourself into trouble?’

‘I think so.’

‘What sort of trouble?’

‘That’s what I’m trying to find out. In any case, I’m the only one to blame, so I must be the one to solve it. It’s nothing that should worry you.’

Isabella looked at me, resigned for the time being but not convinced.

‘You really are a hopeless person. Did you know that?’

‘I’m getting used to the idea.’

‘If you want me to stay, the rules here must change.’

‘I’m all ears.’

‘No more enlightened despotism. From now on, this house is a democracy.’

‘Liberty, equality and fraternity.’

‘Watch it where fraternity is concerned. But no more ordering around, and no more little Mr Rochester numbers.’

‘Whatever you say, Miss Eyre.’

‘And don’t get your hopes up, because I’m not going to marry you even if you go blind.’

I put out my hand to seal our pact. She shook it with some hesitation and then gave me a hug. I let myself be wrapped in her arms and leaned my face on her hair. Her touch was full of peace and welcome, the life light of a seventeen-year-old girl, and I wanted to believe that it resembled the embrace my mother had never had time to give me.

‘Friends?’ I whispered.

‘Till death us do part.’

22

The new regulations of the Isabellian reign came into effect at nine o’clock the following morning, when my assistant turned up in the kitchen and informed me how things were going to be from then on.

‘I’ve been thinking that you need a routine in your life. Otherwise you get sidetracked and act in a dissolute manner.’

‘Where did you get that expression from?’

‘From one of your books. Dis-so-lute. It sounds good.’

‘And it’s great for rhymes.’

‘Don’t change the subject.’

During the day we would both work on our respective manuscripts. We would have dinner together and then she’d show me the pages she’d written that day and we’d discuss them. I swore I would be frank and give her appropriate suggestions, not just empty words to keep her happy. Sundays would be our day off and I’d take her to the pictures, to the theatre or out for a walk. She would help me find documents in libraries and archives and it would be her job to make sure the larder was always well stocked thanks to her connection with the family emporium. I would make breakfast and she’d make dinner. Lunch would be prepared by whoever was free at that moment. We divided up the chores and I promised to accept the irrefutable fact that the house needed to be cleaned regularly. I would not attempt to find her a boyfriend under any circumstances and she would refrain from questioning my motives for working for the boss or from expressing her opinion on the matter unless I asked for it. The rest we would make up as we went along.

I raised my cup of coffee and we toasted my unconditional surrender.

In just a couple of days I had given myself over to the peace and tranquillity of the vassal. Isabella awoke slowly, and by the time she emerged from her room, her eyes half-closed, wearing a pair of my slippers that were much too big for her, I had the breakfast ready, with coffee and the morning paper, a different one each day.

Routine is the housekeeper of inspiration. Only forty-eight hours after the establishment of the new regime, I discovered that I was beginning to recover the discipline of my most productive years. The hours of being locked up in the study crystallised into pages and more pages, in which, not without some anxiety, I began to see the work taking shape, reaching the point at which it stopped being an idea and became a reality.

The text flowed, brilliant, electric. It read like a legend, a mythological saga about miracles and hardships, peopled with characters and scenes that were knotted around a prophecy of hope for the race. The narrative prepared the way for the arrival of a warrior saviour who would liberate the nation of all pain and injustice in order to give it back the pride and glory that had been snatched away by its enemies – foes who had conspired since time immemorial against the people, whoever that people might be. The mechanics of the plot were impeccable and would work equally well for any creed, race or tribe. Flags, gods and proclamations were the jokers in a pack that always dealt the same cards. Given the nature of the work, I had chosen one of the most complex and difficult techniques to apply to any literary text: the apparent absence of technique. The language resounded plain and simple, the voice was honest and clean, a consciousness that did not narrate, but simply revealed. Sometimes I would stop to reread what I’d written and, overcome with blind vanity, I’d feel that the mechanism I was setting up worked with perfect precision. I realised that for the first time in a long while I had spent whole hours without thinking about Cristina or Pedro Vidal. Life, I told myself, was improving. Perhaps for that very reason, because it seemed that at last I was going to get out of the predicament into which I’d fallen, I did what I’ve always done when I’ve got myself back on the rails: I ruined it all.

One morning, after breakfast, I donned one of my respectable suits. I stepped into the gallery to say goodbye to Isabella and saw her leaning over her desk, rereading pages from the day before.

‘Are you not writing today?’ she asked without looking up.

‘I’m having a day off for meditation.’

I noticed the set of pen nibs and the ink pot decorated with muses next to her notebook.

‘I thought you considered it kitsch,’ I said.

‘I do, but I’m a seventeen-year-old girl and I have every right in the world to like kitsch things. It’s like you with your cigars.’

The smell of eau de cologne reached her and she looked at me questioningly. When she saw that I’d dressed to go out she frowned.

‘You’re off to do some more detective work?’ she asked.

‘A bit.’

‘Don’t you need a bodyguard? A Doctor Watson? Someone with a little common sense?’

‘Don’t learn how to find excuses for not writing before you learn how to write. That’s a privilege of professionals and you have to earn it.’

‘I think that if I’m your assistant, that should cover everything.’

I smiled meekly.

‘Actually, there is something I wanted to ask you. No, don’t worry. It’s to do with Sempere. I’ve heard that he’s hard up and that the bookshop is at risk.’

‘That can’t be true.’

‘Unfortunately it is, but it’s all right because we’re not going to allow matters to get any worse.’

‘Señor Sempere is very proud and he’s not going to let you… You’ve already tried, haven’t you?’

I nodded.

‘That’s why I thought we need to be a little shrewder, and resort to something more cunning,’ I said.

‘Your speciality.’

I ignored her disapproving tone. ‘This is what I’ve planned: you drop by the bookshop, as if you just happened to be passing, and tell Sempere that I’m an ogre, that you’re sick of me-’

‘Up to now it sounds one-hundred-per-cent credible.’

‘Don’t interrupt. You tell him all that and also tell him that what I pay you to be my assistant is a pittance.’

‘But you don’t pay me a penny…’

I sighed. This required patience.

‘When he says he’s sorry to hear it, and he will, make yourself look like a damsel in distress and confess, if possible with a tear or two, that your father has disinherited you and wants to send you to a nunnery. Tell him you thought that perhaps you could work in his shop for a few hours a day, for a trial period, in exchange for a three-per-cent commission on what you sell. That way, you can carve out a future for yourself far from the convent, as a liberated woman devoted to the dissemination of literature.’

Isabella grimaced.

‘Three per cent? Do you want to help Sempere or fleece him?’

‘I want you to put on a dress like the one you wore the other night, get yourself all spruced up, as only you know how, and pay him a visit while his son is in the shop, which is usually in the afternoons.’

‘Are we talking about the handsome one?’

‘How many sons does Señor Sempere have?’

Isabella made her calculations and, when she began to understand what was going on, she threw me a sulphurous look.

‘If my father knew the kind of perverse mind you have, he’d buy himself that shotgun.’

‘All I’m saying is that the son must see you. And the father must see the son seeing you.’

‘You’re even worse than I imagined. Now you’re devoting yourself to the white slave trade.’

‘It’s pure Christian charity. Besides, you were the first to admit that Sempere’s son is good-looking.’

‘Good-looking and a bit slow.’

‘Don’t exaggerate. Sempere junior is just shy in the presence of females, which does him credit. He’s a model citizen who, despite being aware of his enticing appearance, exercises extreme self-control out of respect and devotion to the immaculate purity of Barcelona’s womenfolk. Don’t tell me this doesn’t bestow an aura of nobility that appeals to your instincts, both maternal and the rest.’

‘Sometimes I think I hate you, Señor Martín.’

‘Hold on to that feeling, but don’t blame poor young Sempere for my deficiencies as a human being because, strictly speaking, he’s a saint.’

‘We agreed that you wouldn’t try to find me a boyfriend.’

‘I’ve said nothing about a boyfriend. If you’ll let me finish, I’ll tell you the rest.’

‘Go on, Rasputin.’

‘When the older Sempere says yes to you, and he will, I want you to spend two or three hours a day at the counter in the bookshop.’

‘Dressed like what? Mata Hari?’

‘Dressed with the decorum and good taste that is characteristic of you. Pretty, suggestive, but without standing out. As I’ve said, if necessary you can rescue one of Irene Sabino’s dresses, but it must be modest.’

‘Two or three of them look fantastic on me,’ Isabella commented, licking her lips in anticipation.

‘Then wear whichever one covers you the most.’

‘You’re a reactionary. What about my literary education?’

‘What better classroom than Sempere & Sons? You’ll be surrounded by masterpieces from which you can learn in bulk.’

‘And what should I do? Take a deep breath to see if something sticks?’

‘It’s just for a few hours a day. After that you can continue your work here, as you have until now, receiving my advice, which is always priceless and will turn you into a new Jane Austen.’

‘And where’s the cunning plan?’

‘The cunning plan is that every day I’ll give you a few pesetas, and every time you are paid by a customer and open the till you’ll slide them in discreetly.’

‘So that’s your plan…’

‘That’s the plan. As you can see, there’s nothing perverse about it.’

Isabella frowned again.

‘It won’t work. He’ll notice there’s something wrong. Señor Sempere is nobody’s fool.’

‘It will work. And if Sempere seems puzzled, you tell him that when customers see a pretty girl behind the counter, they let go of the purse strings and become more generous.’

‘That might be so in the cheap haunts you frequent, not in a bookshop.’

‘I beg to differ. If I were to go into a bookshop and come across a shop assistant who is as pretty and charming as you are, then I might even be capable of buying the latest national book award winner.’

‘That’s because your mind is as filthy as a hen house.’

‘I also have – or should I say “we have” – a debt of gratitude towards Sempere.’

‘That’s a low blow.’

‘Then don’t make me aim even lower.’

Every self-respecting act of persuasion must first appeal to curiosity, then to vanity, and lastly to kindness or remorse. Isabella looked down and slowly nodded.

‘And when were you planning to set this plan of the bounteous goddess in motion?’

‘Don’t put off for tomorrow what you can do today.’

‘Today?’

‘This afternoon.’

‘Tell me the truth. Is this a strategy for laundering the money the boss pays you, and to purge your conscience, or whatever it is you have where there should be one?’

‘You know my motives are always selfish.’

‘And what if Señor Sempere says no?’

‘Just make sure the son is there and you’re dressed in your Sunday best, but not for Mass.’

‘It’s a degrading and offensive plan.’

‘And you love it.’

At last Isabella smiled, cat-like.

‘What if the son suddenly grows bold and allows his hands to wander?’

‘I can guarantee the heir won’t dare lay a finger on you unless it’s in the presence of a priest waving a marriage certificate.’

‘That sounds a bit extreme.’

‘Will you do it?’

‘For you?’

‘For literature.’

23

When I stepped outside I was greeted by an icy breeze sweeping up the streets, and I knew that autumn was tiptoeing its way into Barcelona. In Plaza Palacio I got on a tram that was waiting there, empty, like a large wrought-iron rat trap. I sat by the window and paid the conductor for my ticket.

‘Do you go as far as Sarriá?’ I asked.

‘As far as the square.’

I leaned my head against the window and soon the tram set off with a jerk. I closed my eyes and succumbed to one of those naps that can only be enjoyed on board some mechanical monstrosity, the sleep of modern man. I dreamed that I was travelling in a train made of black bones, its coaches shaped like coffins, crossing a deserted Barcelona that was strewn with discarded clothes, as if the bodies that had occupied them had simply evaporated. A wasteland of abandoned hats and dresses, suits and shoes that covered the silent streets. The engine gave off a trail of scarlet smoke that spread across the sky like spilt paint. A smiling boss travelled next to me. He was dressed in white and wore gloves. Something dark and glutinous dripped from the tips of his fingers.

‘What has happened to all the people?’

‘Have faith, Martín. Have faith.’

As I awoke, the tram was gliding slowly into Plaza de Sarriá. I jumped off before it reached the stop and made my way up Calle Mayor de Sarriá. Fifteen minutes later I arrived at my destination.

Carretera de Vallvidrera started in a shady grove behind the red-brick castle of San Ignacio’s school. The street climbed uphill, bordered by solitary mansions, and was covered with a carpet of fallen leaves. Low clouds slid down the mountainside, dissolving into puffs of mist. I walked along the pavement and tried to work out the street numbers as I passed garden walls and wrought-iron gates. Behind them, barely visible, stood houses of darkened stone and dried-up fountains beached between paths that were thick with weeds. I walked along a stretch of road beneath a long row of cypress trees and discovered that the numbers jumped from 11 to 15. Confused, I retraced my steps in search of number 13. I was beginning to suspect that Señor Valera’s secretary was, in fact, cleverer than she had seemed and had given me a false address, when I noticed an alleyway leading off the pavement. It ran for about fifty metres towards some dark iron railings that formed a crest of spears atop a stone wall.

I turned into the narrow cobbled lane and walked down to the railings. A thick, unkempt garden had crept towards the other side and the branches of a eucalyptus tree passed through the spearheads like the arms of prisoners pleading through the bars of a cell. I pushed aside the leaves that covered part of the wall and found the letters and numbers carved in the stone.

CASA MARLASCA

1 3

As I followed the railings that ran round the edge of the garden, I tried to catch a glimpse of the interior. Some twenty metres along I discovered a metal door fitted into the stone wall. A large door knocker rested on the iron sheet that was welded together with tears of rust. The door was ajar. I pushed with my shoulder and managed to open it just enough to pass through without tearing my clothes on the sharp bits of stone that jutted out from the wall. The air was infused with the intense stench of wet earth.

A path of marble tiles led through the trees to an open area covered with white stones. On one side stood a garage, its doors open, revealing the remains of what had once been a Mercedes-Benz and now looked like a hearse abandoned to its fate. The house was a three-storey building in the modernist style, with curved lines and a crown of dormer windows coming together in a swirl beneath turrets and arches. Narrow windows, sharp as daggers, opened in its facade, which was peppered with reliefs and gargoyles. The glass panes reflected the silent passing of the clouds. I thought I could see the outline of a face behind one of the first-floor windows.

Without quite knowing why, I raised my arm and smiled faintly. I didn’t want to be taken for a thief. The figure remained there watching me, as still as a spider. I looked down for a moment and, when I looked up again, it had disappeared.

‘Good morning!’ I called out.

I waited for a few seconds and when no reply came I proceeded slowly towards the house. An oval-shaped swimming pool flanked the eastern side, beyond which stood a glass conservatory. Frayed deckchairs surrounded the swimming pool. A diving board, overgrown with ivy, was poised over the sheet of murky water. I walked towards the edge and saw that it was littered with dead leaves and algae rippling over the surface. I was looking at my own reflection in the water when I noticed a dark figure hovering behind me.

I spun round and met a pointed, sombre face, examining me nervously.

‘Who are you and what are you doing here?’

‘My name is David Martín and Señor Valera, the lawyer, sent me.’

Alicia Marlasca pressed her lips together.

‘You’re Señora de Marlasca? Doña Alicia?’

‘What’s happened to the one who usually comes?’ she asked.

I realised that Señora Marlasca had taken me for one of the articled clerks from Valera’s office and had assumed I was bringing papers to sign or some message from the lawyers. For a moment I considered adopting that identity, but something in the woman’s face told me that she’d heard enough lies to last her a lifetime.

‘I don’t work for the firm, Señora Marlasca. The reason for my visit is a personal matter. I wonder whether you would have a few minutes to speak about one of the old properties belonging to your deceased husband, Don Diego.’

The widow turned pale and looked away. She was leaning on a stick and I noticed a wheelchair in the doorway of the conservatory: I assumed she spent more time in it than she would care to admit.

‘None of the properties belonging to my husband remain, Señor…’

‘Martín.’

‘The banks kept everything, Señor Martín. Everything except for this house, which, thanks to the advice of Señor Valera’s father, was put in my name. The rest was taken by the scavengers…’

‘I’m referring to the tower house, in Calle Flassaders.’

The widow sighed. I reckoned she was around sixty to sixty-five years old. The echo of what must once have been a dazzling beauty had scarcely faded.

‘Forget that house. It’s cursed.’

‘Unfortunately I can’t. I live there.’

Señora Marlasca frowned.

‘I thought nobody wanted to live there. It stood empty for years.’

‘I’ve been renting it for some time. The reason for my visit is that, while I was doing some renovations, I came across a few personal items which I think belonged to your deceased husband and, I suppose, to you.’

‘There’s nothing of mine in that house. Whatever you’ve found must belong to that woman…’

‘Irene Sabino?’

Alicia Marlasca smiled bitterly.

‘What do you really want to know, Señor Martín? Tell me the truth. You haven’t come all this way to return some old things belonging to my husband.’

We gazed at each other in silence and I knew that I couldn’t and didn’t want to lie to this woman, whatever the cost.

‘I’m trying to find out what happened to your husband, Señora Marlasca.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I think the same thing may be happening to me.’

Casa Marlasca had the feel of an abandoned mausoleum that characterises large houses sustained on absence and neglect. Far from its days of fortune and glory, when an army of servants kept it pristine and full of splendour, the house was now a ruin. Paint was peeling off the walls; the floor tiles were loose; the furniture was rotten and damp; the ceilings sagged and the large carpets were threadbare and discoloured. I helped the widow sit on her wheelchair and, following her instructions, pushed her to a reading room that contained hardly any books or pictures.

‘I had to sell almost everything to survive,’ she explained. ‘If it hadn’t been for Señor Valera, who still sends me a small pension every month on behalf of the firm, I wouldn’t have known what to do.’

‘Do you live here alone?’

The widow nodded.

‘This is my home. The only place where I’ve been happy, even though that was many years ago. I’ve always lived here and I’ll die here. I’m sorry I haven’t offered you anything. It’s been so long since I last had visitors that I’ve forgotten how to treat a guest. Would you like coffee or a tea?’

‘I’m fine, thanks.’

Señora Marlasca smiled and pointed to the armchair in which I was sitting.

‘That was my husband’s favourite. He used to sit by the fire and read until late. I sometimes sat here, next to him, and listened. He liked telling me things, at least he did back then. We were very happy in this house…’

‘What happened?’

The widow stared at the ashes in the hearth.

‘Are you sure you want to hear this story?’

‘Please.’

24

‘To be honest, I’m not quite certain when my husband, Diego, met her. I just remember that one day he began to mention her in passing, and that soon not a day went by without him saying her name: Irene Sabino. He told me he’d been introduced to her by a man called Damián Roures who organised seances somewhere on Calle Elisabets. Diego was an expert on religions and had gone to a number of seances as an observer. In those days Irene Sabino was one of the most popular actresses in the Paralelo. She was beautiful, I will not deny it. Apart from that, I think she was just about able to count up to ten. People said she’d been born in the shacks of Bogatell beach, that her mother had abandoned her in the Somorrostro shanty town and she’d grown up among beggars and fugitives. At fourteen she started to dance in cabarets and nightclubs in the Raval and the Paralelo. Dancing is one way of putting it. I suppose she began to prostitute herself before she learned to read and write, if she ever did learn, that is… For a while she was the main star at La Criolla, or that’s what people said. Then she went on to more upmarket venues. I think it was at the Apolo that she met a man called Juan Corbera, whom everyone called Jaco. Jaco was her manager and probably her lover. It was Jaco who invented the name Irene Sabino and the legend that she was the secret offspring of a famous Parisian cabaret star and a prince of the European nobility. I don’t know what her real name was, or whether she ever had one. Jaco introduced her to the seances, at Roures’s suggestion, I believe, and they shared the benefits of selling her supposed virginity to wealthy, bored men who went along to those shams to kill the monotony. Her speciality was couples, they say.

‘What Jaco and his partner Roures didn’t suspect was that Irene was obsessed with the sessions and really believed she could make contact with the world of spirits. She was convinced that her mother sent her messages from the other side, and even when she became famous she continued attending the seances to try to establish contact with her. That is where she met my husband Diego. I suppose we were going through a bad patch, like all marriages do. Diego had been wanting to leave the legal profession for some time to devote himself to writing. I admit that he didn’t find the support he needed from me. I thought that if he did it, he would be throwing his life away, although probably what I really feared losing was all this, the house, the servants… I lost everything anyhow, and my husband too. What ended up separating us was the loss of Ismael. Ismael was our son. Diego was crazy about him. I’ve never seen a father so dedicated to his son. Ismael was his life, not I. We were arguing in the bedroom on the first floor. I began to reproach him for the time he spent writing, and for the fact that his partner, Valera, tired of having to shoulder Diego’s work as well as his own, had sent him an ultimatum and was thinking about dissolving their partnership and setting himself up independently. Diego said he didn’t care: he was ready to sell his part in the business so that he could dedicate himself to his vocation. That afternoon we couldn’t find Ismael. He wasn’t in his room or in the garden. I thought that when he’d heard us arguing he must have been frightened and had left the house. It wasn’t the first time he’d done that. Some months earlier he’d been found on a bench in Plaza de Sarriá, crying. We went out to look for him as it was getting dark, but there was no sign of him anywhere. We went to our neighbours’ houses, to hospitals… When we returned at dawn, after spending all night looking for him, we found his body at the bottom of the pool. He’d drowned the previous afternoon and we hadn’t heard his cries for help because we were too busy shouting at each other. He was seven years old. Diego never forgave me, nor himself. Soon we were unable to bear each other’s presence. Every time we looked at one another, every time we touched, we saw our dead son’s body at the bottom of that damned pool. One day I woke up and knew that Diego had abandoned me. He left the law firm and went to live in a rambling old house in the Ribera quarter which he had been obsessed with for years. He said he was writing and he’d received a very important commission from a publisher in Paris, so I didn’t need to worry about money. I knew he was with Irene, even if he didn’t admit it. He was a broken man and was convinced that he only had a short time to live. He thought he’d caught some illness, a sort of parasite, that was eating him up. All he ever spoke about was death. He wouldn’t listen to anyone. Not to me, not to Valera… only to Irene and Roures, who poisoned his mind with stories about spirits and extracted money from him by promising to put him in touch with Ismael. On one occasion I went to the tower house and begged him to open the door. He wouldn’t let me in. He told me he was busy, said he was working on something that was going to enable him to save Ismael. I realised then that he was beginning to lose his mind. He believed that if he wrote that wretched book for the Parisian publisher our son would return from the dead. I think that between the three of them – Irene, Roures and Jaco – they managed to get their hands on what little money he had left, we had left… He no longer saw anybody and spent his time locked up in that horrible place. Months later they found him dead. The police said it had been an accident, but I never believed it. Jaco had disappeared and there was no trace of the money. Roures maintained he didn’t know anything. He declared that he hadn’t had any contact with Diego for months because Diego had gone mad, and he scared him. He said that in his last appearances at the seances Diego had frightened his customers with stories of accursed souls so Roures had not allowed him to return. Diego said there was a huge lake of blood under the city; that his son spoke to him in his dreams; that Ismael was trapped by a shadow with a serpent’s skin who pretended to be another boy and played with him… Nobody was surprised when they found him dead. Irene said Diego had taken his own life because of me; she said that his cold and calculating wife, who had allowed his son to die because she didn’t want to give up her life of luxury, had pushed him to his death. She said she was the only one who had truly loved him and that she’d never accepted a penny from him. And I think, at least in that respect, she was telling the truth. I’m sure Jaco used her to seduce Diego in order to rob him of everything. Later, when matters came to a head, Jaco left her behind and fled without sharing a single thing. That’s what the police said, or at least some of them. I always felt that they didn’t want to stir things up and the suicide version of events turned out to be very convenient. But I don’t believe Diego took his own life. I didn’t believe it then and I don’t believe it now. I think Irene and Jaco murdered him. And not just for the money. There was something else. I remember that one of the policemen assigned to the case, a young man called Salvador, Ricardo Salvador, thought the same. He said there was something that didn’t add up in the official version of events and that somebody was covering up the real cause of Diego’s death. Salvador tried very hard to establish the facts but he was removed from the case and was eventually thrown out of the police force. Even then he continued to investigate on his own. He came to see me sometimes and we became good friends… I was a woman on my own, ruined and desperate. Valera kept telling me I should remarry. He also blamed me for what had happened to my husband and even insinuated that there were plenty of unmarried shopkeepers around who wouldn’t mind having a pleasant-looking widow with aristocratic airs warm their beds in their golden years. Eventually even Salvador stopped visiting me. I don’t blame him. By trying to help me he had ruined his own life. Sometimes I think that the only thing I’ve ever managed to do for others is destroy their lives… I hadn’t told anybody this story until today, Señor Martín. If you want some advice, forget that house; forget me, my husband and this whole story. Go away, far away. This city is damned. Damned.’

25

I left Casa Marlasca in low spirits and wandered aimlessly through the maze of lonely streets that led to Pedralbes. The sky was covered with a mesh of clouds that barely allowed the sun to filter through. Needles of light perforated the grey shroud and swept across the hillside. I followed these lines of light with my eyes and saw how, in the distance, they caressed the enamelled roof of Villa Helius. The windows shone in the distance. Ignoring common sense, I set off in that direction. As I drew near, the sky darkened and a cutting wind lifted the fallen leaves into spirals. I stopped when I reached Calle Panamá. Villa Helius rose before me. I didn’t dare cross the road and approach the wall surrounding the garden. Instead, I stood there for God knows how long, unable to leave or to go over to the door and knock. Then I saw her, walking across one of the large windows on the second floor. An intense cold invaded me. I was about to leave when she turned and stopped. She went up to the windowpane and I felt her eyes resting on mine. She raised her hand as if she were about to greet me, but didn’t spread out her fingers. I didn’t have the courage to hold her gaze; I turned round and walked off down the street. My hands were shaking and I thrust them into my pockets. Before turning the corner I looked back again and saw that she was still there, watching me. I tried to hate her but I couldn’t find the strength.

I arrived home feeling chilled to the bone. As I walked through the front door I noticed the top of an envelope peeping out of the letter box. Parchment and sealing wax. News from the boss. I opened it while I dragged myself up the stairs. His elegant handwriting summoned me to a meeting the following day. When I reached the landing, the door was already ajar and Isabella was waiting for me with a smile.

‘I was in the study and saw you coming,’ she said.

I tried to smile back at her, but can’t have been very convincing. She looked me in the eye and her face took on a worried expression.

‘Are you all right?’

‘It’s nothing. I think I’ve caught a bit of a chill.’

‘I have some broth on the stove. It’ll work wonders. Come in.’

Isabella took my arm and led me to the gallery.

‘I’m not an invalid, Isabella.’

She let go of me and looked down.

‘I’m sorry.’

I didn’t feel like a confrontation with anybody, still less my obstinate assistant, so I allowed her to guide me to one of the gallery armchairs into which I fell like a sack of bones. Isabella sat opposite me and looked at me with alarm.

‘What happened?’

I smiled reassuringly.

‘Nothing. Nothing has happened. Weren’t you going to give me a bowl of soup?’

‘Right away.’

She shot off towards the kitchen and I heard her rushing about. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes until I heard her footsteps approaching.

She handed me a steaming bowl of exaggerated dimensions.

‘It looks like a chamber pot,’ I said.

‘Drink it and don’t be so rude.’

I sniffed at the broth. It smelled good, but I didn’t want to seem too docile.

‘It smells odd,’ I said. ‘What’s in it?’

‘It smells of chicken because it’s made of chicken, salt and a dash of sherry. Drink it.’

I took a sip and gave the bowl back to Isabella. She shook her head.

‘All of it.’

I sighed and took another sip. It was good, whether I wanted to admit it or not.

‘So, how was your day?’ Isabella asked.

‘It had its moments. How did you get on?’

‘You’re looking at the new star shop assistant of Sempere & Sons.’

‘Excellent.’

‘By five o’clock I’d already sold two copies of The Picture of Dorian Gray and a set of the complete works of Kipling to a very distinguished gentleman from Madrid who gave me a tip. Don’t look at me like that; I put the tip in the till.’

‘What about Sempere’s son? What did he say?’

‘He didn’t actually say very much. He was like a stuffed dummy the whole time pretending he wasn’t looking, but he couldn’t take his eyes off me. I can hardly sit down my bum’s so sore from him staring at it every time I went up the ladder to bring down a book. Happy?’

I smiled and nodded.

‘Thanks, Isabella.’

She looked straight into my eyes.

‘Say that again.’

‘Thank you, Isabella. From the bottom of my heart.’

She blushed and looked away. We sat for a while in a placid silence, enjoying that camaraderie which doesn’t even require words. I drank my broth until I could barely swallow another drop, and then showed her the empty bowl. She nodded.

‘You’ve been to see her, haven’t you? That woman, Cristina,’ said Isabella, trying not to meet my eyes.

‘Isabella, the reader of faces…’

‘Tell me the truth.’

‘I only saw her from a distance.’

Isabella looked at me cautiously, as if she were debating whether or not to say something that was stuck in her conscience.

‘Do you love her?’ she finally asked.

For a moment there was silence.

‘I don’t know how to love anybody. You know that. I’m a selfish person and all that. Let’s talk about something else.’

Isabella’s eyes settled on the envelope sticking out of my pocket.

‘News from the boss?’

‘The monthly call. His Excellency Señor Andreas Corelli is pleased to ask me to attend a meeting tomorrow at seven o’clock in the morning by the entrance to the Pueblo Nuevo Cemetery. He couldn’t have chosen a better place.’

‘And you plan to go?’

‘What else can I do?’

‘You could take a train this very evening and disappear forever.’

‘You’re the second person to suggest that to me today. To disappear from here.’

‘There must be a reason.’

‘And who would be your guide through the disasters of literature?’

‘I’d go with you.’

I smiled and took her hand in mine.

‘With you to the ends of the earth and back, Isabella.’

Isabella withdrew her hand suddenly and looked offended.

‘You’re making fun of me.’

‘Isabella, if I ever decide to make fun of you, I’ll shoot myself.’

‘Don’t say that. I don’t like it when you talk like that.’

‘I’m sorry.’

My assistant turned to her desk and sank into a deep silence. I watched her going over her day’s pages, making corrections and crossing out whole paragraphs with the pen set I had given her.

‘I can’t concentrate with you looking at me.’

I stood up and went past her desk.

‘Then I’ll leave you to work, and after dinner you can show me what you’ve written.’

‘It’s not ready. I have to correct it all and rewrite it and-’

‘It’s never ready, Isabella. Get used to it. We’ll read it together after dinner.’

‘Tomorrow.’

I gave in.

‘Tomorrow.’

I walked away, leaving her alone with her words. I was just closing the door when I heard her voice calling me.

‘David?’

I stopped on the other side of the door, but didn’t say anything. ‘It’s not true. It’s not true that you don’t know how to love anyone.’

I took refuge in my bedroom and closed the door. I lay down on the bed, curled up, and closed my eyes.

26

I left the house after dawn. Dark clouds crept over the rooftops, stealing the colour from the streets. As I crossed Ciudadela Park I saw the first drops hitting the trees and exploding on the path like bullets, raising eddies of dust. On the other side of the park a forest of factories and gas towers multiplied towards the horizon, the soot from the chimneys diluted in the black rain that plummeted from the sky like tears of tar. I walked along the uninviting avenue of cypress trees leading to the gates of the cemetery, the same route I had taken so many times with my father. The boss was already there. I saw him from afar, waiting patiently under the rain, at the foot of one of the large stone angels that guarded the main entrance to the graveyard. He was dressed in black and the only thing that set him apart from the hundreds of statues on the other side of the cemetery railings was his eyes. He didn’t move an eyelash until I was a few metres away. Not quite sure what to do, I raised my hand to greet him. It was cold and the wind smelled of lime and sulphur.

‘Visitors naively think that it’s always sunny and hot in this town,’ said the boss. ‘But I say that sooner or later Barcelona’s ancient, murky soul is always reflected in the sky.’

‘You should publish tourist guides instead of religious texts,’ I suggested.

‘It comes to the same thing, more or less. How have these peaceful, calm days been? Have you made progress with the work? Do you have good news for me?’

I opened my jacket and handed him a sheaf of pages. We entered the cemetery in search of a place to shelter from the rain. The boss chose an old mausoleum with a dome held up by marble columns and surrounded by angels with sharp faces and fingers that were too long. We sat on a cold stone bench. The boss gave me one of his canine smiles, his shining pupils contracting to a black point in which I could see the reflection of my own uneasy expression.

‘Relax, Martín. You make too much of the props.’

Calmly, the boss began to read the pages I had brought.

‘I think I’ll go for a walk while you read,’ I said.

Corelli didn’t bother to look up.

‘Don’t escape from me,’ he murmured.

I got away as fast as I could without making it obvious that I was doing just that, and wandered among the paths with their twists and turns. I skirted obelisks and tombs as I entered the heart of the necropolis. The tombstone was still there, marked by a vase containing only the skeleton of shrivelled flowers. Vidal had paid for the funeral and had even commissioned a pietà from a sculptor of some repute in the undertakers’ guild. She guarded the tomb, eyes looking heavenward, her hands on her chest in supplication. I knelt down by the tombstone and cleaned away the moss that had covered the letters chiselled on it.

JOSÉ ANTONIO MARTÍN CLARÉS

1875-1908

Hero of the Philippines War

His country and his friends will never forget him

‘Good morning, father,’ I said.

I watched the black rain as it slid down the face of the pietà, listened to the sound of the drops hitting the tombstones, and offered a smile to the health of those friends he’d never had and that country that had consigned him to a living death in order to enrich a handful of caciques who never knew he existed. I sat on the gravestone and put my hand on the marble.

‘Who would have guessed, eh?’

My father, who had lived on the verge of destitution, rested eternally in a bourgeois tomb. As a child I had never understood why the newspaper had decided to give him a funeral with a smart priest and hired mourners, with flowers and a resting place fit for a sugar merchant. Nobody told me it was Vidal himself who paid for the lavish funeral of the man who had died in his place, although I had always suspected as much and had attributed the gesture to that infinite kindness and generosity with which the heavens had blessed my mentor and idol.

‘I must beg your forgiveness, father. For years I hated you for leaving me here, alone. I told myself you’d got the death you deserved. That’s why I never came to see you. Forgive me.’

My father had never liked tears. He thought a man never cried for others, only for himself. And if he did, he was a coward and deserved no pity. I didn’t want to cry for him and betray him yet again.

‘I would have liked you to have seen my name in a book, even if you couldn’t read it. I would have liked you to have been here with me, to see that your son is managing to get on in life and has been able to do things that you were never allowed to do. I would have liked to have known you, father, and for you to have known me. I turned you into a stranger in order to forget you and now I’m the stranger.’

I didn’t hear the boss approaching, but when I raised my head I saw him watching me from just a few metres away. I stood up and went over to him, like a well-trained dog. I wondered whether he knew my father was buried there and whether he had asked me to meet him in the graveyard for that very reason. My expression must have betrayed me, because the boss shook his head and put a hand on my shoulder.

‘I didn’t know, Martín. I’m sorry.’

I was not going to open that door of friendship to him. I turned away to rid myself of his gesture of sympathy and pressed my eyes shut to contain the tears of anger. I started to walk towards the exit, without him. The boss waited a few seconds and then decided to follow me. He walked beside me in silence until we reached the main gates. There I stopped and glared at him impatiently.

‘Well? Any comments?’

The boss ignored my hostile tone and smiled indulgently.

‘The work is excellent.’

‘But-’

‘If I had any observation to make it would be that you’ve hit the nail on the head by constructing the whole story from the point of view of a witness to the events, someone who feels like a victim and speaks on behalf of a people awaiting the warrior saviour. I want you to continue along those lines.’

‘You don’t think it sounds forced, contrived…?’

‘On the contrary. Nothing makes us believe more than fear, the certainty of being threatened. When we feel like victims, all our actions and beliefs are legitimised, however questionable they may be. Our opponents, or simply our neighbours, stop sharing common ground with us and become our enemies. We stop being aggressors and become defenders. The envy, greed or resentment that motivates us becomes sanctified, because we tell ourselves we’re acting in self-defence. Evil, menace, those are always the preserve of the other. The first step towards believing passionately is fear. Fear of losing our identity, our life, our status or our beliefs. Fear is the gunpowder and hatred is the fuse. Dogma, the final ingredient, is only a lighted match. That is where I think your work has a hole or two.’

‘Please clarify one thing: are you looking for a faith or a dogma?’

‘It’s not enough that people should believe. They must believe what we want them to believe. And they must not question it or listen to the voice of whoever questions it. Dogma must form part of identity itself. Whoever questions it is our enemy. He is evil. And it is our right and our duty to confront and destroy him. It is the only road to salvation. Believe in order to survive.’

I sighed and looked away, nodding reluctantly.

‘You don’t looked convinced, Martín. Tell me what you’re thinking. Do you think I’m mistaken?’

‘I don’t know. I think you are simplifying things in a dangerous way. Your whole speech sounds like a stratagem for generating and channelling hatred.’

‘The adjective you were going to use was not “dangerous” but “repugnant”, but I won’t hold that against you.’

‘Why should we reduce faith to an act of rejection and blind obedience? Is it not possible to believe in values of acceptance, of harmony?’

The boss smiled. He was enjoying himself.

‘It is possible to believe in anything, Martín, be it the free market or even the tooth fairy. We can even believe that we don’t believe in anything, as you do, which is the greatest credulity of them all. Am I right?’

‘The customer is always right. What is the other hole you see in the story?’

‘I miss having a villain. Whether we realise it or not, most of us define ourselves by opposing rather than by favouring something or someone. To put it another way, it is easier to react than to act. Nothing arouses a passion for dogma more than a good antagonist. And the more unlikely, the better.’

‘I thought that role would work better in the abstract. The antagonist would be the non-believer, the alien, the one outside the group.’

‘Yes, but I’d you like you to be more specific. It’s difficult to hate an idea. That requires a certain intellectual discipline and a slightly obsessive, sick mind. There aren’t too many of those. It’s much easier to hate someone with a recognisable face whom we can blame for everything that makes us feel uncomfortable. It doesn’t have to be an individual character. It could be a nation, a race, a group… anything.’

The boss’s flawless cynicism could even get the better of me. I gave a despondent sigh.

‘Don’t pretend to be a model citizen now, Martín. It’s all the same to you and we need a villain in this vaudeville. You should know that better than anyone. There is no drama without a conflict.’

‘What sort of villain would you like? A tyrant invader? A false prophet? The bogeyman?’

‘I’ll leave the outfit to you. Any of the usual suspects suits me. One of the functions of our villain must be to allow us to adopt the role of the victim and claim our moral superiority. We project onto him all those things we are incapable of recognising in ourselves, things we demonise according to our particular interests. It’s the basic arithmetic of the Pharisees. I keep telling you: you need to read the Bible. All the answers you’re looking for are in there.’

‘I’m on the case.’

‘All you have to do is convince the sanctimonious that they are free of all sin and they’ll start throwing stones, or bombs, with gusto. In fact, it doesn’t take much, because they can be convinced with the bare minimum of encouragement and excuses. I don’t know whether I’m making myself clear.’

‘You are making yourself abundantly clear. Your arguments have the subtlety of a blast furnace.’

‘I’m not sure I like that condescending tone, Martín. Does this mean you think this project isn’t on a par with your moral or intellectual purity?’

‘Not at all,’ I mumbled faint-heartedly.

‘What is it, then, something tickling your conscience, dear friend?’

‘The usual thing. I’m not sure I’m the nihilist you need.’

‘Nobody is. Nihilism is an attitude, not a doctrine. Place the flame from a candle under the testicles of a nihilist and notice how quickly he sees the light of existence. Something else is bothering you.’

I raised my head and summoned up the most defiant tone I was capable of, looking the boss in the eye.

‘Perhaps what’s bothering me is that I understand everything you say, but I don’t feel it.’

‘Do I pay you to have feelings?’

‘Sometimes feeling and thinking are one and the same. The idea is yours, not mine.’

The boss smiled, and allowed a dramatic pause, like a schoolteacher preparing the lethal sword thrust with which to silence an unruly pupil.

‘And what do you feel, Martín?’

The irony and disdain in his voice encouraged me and I gave vent to the humiliation accumulated during all those months in his shadow. Anger and shame at feeling terrified by his presence and allowing his poisonous speeches. Anger and shame because he had proved to me that, even if I would rather believe the only thing I had in me was despair, my soul was as petty and miserable as his sewer humanism claimed. Anger and shame at feeling, knowing, that he was always right, especially when it hurt to accept that.

‘I’ve asked you a question, Martín. What is it you feel?’

‘I feel that the best course would be to leave things as they are and give you back your money. I feel that, whatever it is you are proposing with this absurd venture, I’d rather not take part in it. And, above all, I feel regret for ever having met you.’

The boss lowered his eyelids and sank into a long silence. He turned and walked a few steps towards the cemetery gates. I watched his dark silhouette outlined against the marble garden, a motionless shape under the rain. I felt afraid, a murky fear that was beginning to grow inside me, inspiring a childish wish to beg forgiveness and accept any punishment in exchange for not having to bear that silence. And I felt disgust. At his presence and, in particular, at myself.

The boss turned round and came over to me again. He stopped just centimetres from me and put his face close to mine. I felt his cold breath on my skin and drowned in his black, bottomless eyes. This time his voice and his tone were like ice, devoid of that studied humanity that peppered his conversation and his gestures.

‘I will only tell you once. You fulfil your obligations and I’ll fulfil mine. It’s the only thing you can and must feel.’

I was not aware that I was nodding repeatedly until the boss pulled the sheaf of papers from his pocket and handed it to me. He let the pages fall before I was able to catch them and a gust of wind swept them away, scattering them near the cemetery gates. I rushed to recover them from the rain, but some of the pages had fallen into puddles and were bleeding in the water, the words coming off the paper in filaments. I gathered them together in a fistful of wet paper. When I looked up again, the boss had gone.

27

If ever I had needed to see a friendly face, it was then. The old building of The Voice of Industry peered over the cemetery walls. I set off in that direction, hoping to find my former master Don Basilio, one of those rare souls immune to the world’s stupidity, who always had good advice. When I walked into the newspaper offices I discovered that I still recognised most of the staff. It seemed as if not a minute had passed since I’d left the place so many years ago. Those who, in turn, recognised me gave me suspicious looks and turned their heads to avoid having to greet me. I slipped into the editorial department and went straight to Don Basilio’s office, which was at the far end. It was empty.

‘Who are you looking for?’

I turned round and saw Rosell, one of the journalists who’d already seemed old to me even when I was working there. Rosell had penned the poisonous review of The Steps of Heaven describing me as a ‘writer of classified advertisements’.

‘Señor Rosell, I’m Martín. David Martín. Don’t you remember me?’

Rosell spent a few moments inspecting me, pretending to have great difficulty recognising me, but finally he nodded.

‘Where’s Don Basilio?’

‘He left two months ago. You’ll find him at the offices of La Vanguardia. If you see him, give him my regards.’

‘I’ll do that.’

‘I’m sorry about your book,’ said Rosell with an obliging smile.

I crossed the editorial department, cutting a path between unfriendly looks, twisted smiles and venomous whispers. Time cures all, I thought, except the truth.

Half an hour later, a taxi dropped me off at the door of the main offices of La Vanguardia in Calle Pelayo. In contrast to the rather forbidding shabbiness of my old newspaper, everything here spoke of elegance and opulence. I made myself known at the reception and a chirpy young boy who looked like an unpaid trainee, reminding me of myself in my youth, was dispatched to let Don Basilio know he had a visitor. My old friend’s leonine presence remained unscathed by the passage of time. If anything, with his new attire matching the exclusive scenery, Don Basilio struck as formidable a figure as he had in his days at The Voice of Industry. His eyes lit up with joy when he saw me, and, breaking his iron protocol, he greeted me with an embrace that could easily have lost me two or three ribs had there not been an audience present – happy or not, Don Basilio had to keep up appearances and a certain reputation.

‘Getting a little respectable, are we, Don Basilio?’

My old boss shrugged his shoulders, making a gesture to indicate that he was playing down the new decor.

‘Don’t let it impress you.’

‘Don’t be modest, Don Basilio; you’ve ended up with the jewel in the crown. Are you taking them in hand?’

Don Basilio pulled out his perennial red pencil and showed it to me, winking as he did so.

‘I get through four a week.’

‘Two fewer than at The Voice.’

‘Give me time. I have one or two experts here who punctuate with a pistol and think that an intro is a starter from the province of Logroño.’

Despite his words, it was obvious that Don Basilio felt comfortable in his new home, and he looked healthier than ever.

‘Don’t tell me you’ve come to ask me for work, because I might even give it to you,’ he threatened.

‘That’s very kind of you, Don Basilio, but you know I gave up the cloth and journalism isn’t for me.’

‘Then let me know how this grumpy old man can be of service.’

‘I need some information about an old case for a story I’m working on. The death of a well-known lawyer called Marlasca, Diego Marlasca.’

‘What year are we talking about?’

‘Nineteen hundred and four.’

Don Basilio sighed.

‘That’s going back a long way. A lot of water has flowed by since then.’

‘Not enough to wash the matter away.’

Don Basilio put a hand on my shoulder and asked me to follow him into the editorial department.

‘Don’t worry; you’ve come to the right place. These good people maintain an archive that would be the envy of the Vatican. If there was anything in the press, we’ll find it for you. Besides, the archivist is a good friend of mine. Let me warn you that next to him I’m Snow White. Pay no attention to his unfriendly disposition. Deep down – very deep down – he’s kindness itself.’

I followed Don Basilio through a wide hall with fine wood panelling. On one side was a circular room with a large round table and a series of portraits from which we were observed by an illustrious group of frowning members of the aristocracy.

‘The room for the witches’ sabbaths,’ Don Basilio explained. ‘All the section heads meet here with the deputy editor, yours truly, and the editor, and like good Knights of the Round Table, we find the Holy Grail every evening at seven o’clock.’

‘Impressive.’

‘You ain’t seen nothing yet,’ said Don Basilio, winking at me. ‘Look at this.’

Don Basilio stood beneath one of the august portraits and pushed the wooden panel covering the wall. The panel yielded with a creak, leading to a hidden corridor.

‘What do you say, Martín? And this is only one of the many secret passages in the building. Not even the Borgias had a set-up like this.’

I followed Don Basilio down the corridor and we reached a large reading room surrounded by glass cabinets, the repository of La Vanguardia ’s secret library. At one end of the room, under the beam emanating from a lampshade of green glass, a middle-aged man was sitting at a table examining a document with a magnifying glass. When he saw us come in he raised his head and gave us a look that would have made anyone young enough, or sensitive enough, turn to stone.

‘Let me introduce you to José María Brotons, lord of the underworld, chief of the catacombs of this holy house,’ Don Basilio announced.

Without letting go of the magnifying glass, Brotons observed me with eyes that seemed to go rusty on contact. I went up to him and shook his hand.

‘This is my old apprentice, David Martín.’

Brotons reluctantly shook my hand and glanced at Don Basilio.

‘Is this the writer?’

‘The very one.’

Brotons nodded.

‘He’s certainly courageous, stepping out into the street after the thrashing they gave him. What’s he doing here?’

‘He’s come to plead for your help, your blessing and advice on an important matter of documental archaeology,’ Don Basilio explained.

‘And where’s the blood sacrifice?’ Brotons spat out.

I swallowed.

‘Sacrifice?’ I asked.

Brotons looked at me as if I were an idiot.

‘A goat, a lamb, a capon if pressed…’

My mind went blank. For an endless moment Brotons kept his eyes fixed on mine without blinking. Then, just as I started to feel the prickle of sweat down my back, the archivist and Don Basilio roared with laughter. I let them laugh as much as they wanted at my expense, until they couldn’t breathe and had to dry their tears. Clearly, Don Basilio had found a soulmate in his new colleague.

‘Come this way, young man,’ Brotons said, doing away with his fierce countenance. ‘Let’s see what we can find.’

28

The newspaper archives were located in one of the basements, under the floor that housed the huge rotary press, a product of post-Victorian technology. It looked like a cross between a monstrous steam engine and a machine for making lightning.

‘Let me introduce you to the rotary press, better known as Leviathan. Mind how you go: they say it has already swallowed more than one unsuspecting person,’ said Don Basilio. ‘It’s like the story of Jonah and the whale, only what comes out again is mincemeat.’

‘Surely you’re exaggerating.’

‘One of these days we could throw in that new trainee, the smart alec who likes to say that print is dead,’ Brotons proposed.

‘Set a time and a date and we’ll celebrate with a stew,’ Don Basilio agreed.

They both laughed like schoolchildren. Birds of a feather, I thought.

The archive was a labyrinth of corridors bordered by three-metre-high shelving. A couple of pale creatures who looked as if they hadn’t left the cellar in fifteen years officiated as Brotons’s assistants. When they saw him, they rushed over, like loyal pets awaiting instructions. Brotons looked at me inquisitively.

‘What is it we’re looking for?’

‘Nineteen hundred and four. The death of a lawyer called Diego Marlasca. A pillar of Barcelona society, founding member of the Valera, Marlasca y Sentís legal firm.’

‘Month?’

‘November.’

At a signal from Brotons, the two assistants ran off in search of copies dating back to November 1904. It was a time when each day was so stained with the presence of death that most newspapers ran large obituaries on their front pages. A character as important as Marlasca would probably have generated more than a simple death notice in the city’s press and his obituary would have been front-cover material. The assistants returned with a few volumes and placed them on a large desk. We divided up the task between all five present and found Diego Marlasca’s obituary on the front page, just as I’d imagined. The edition was dated 23 November 1904. It was Brotons who made the discovery.

‘Habemus cadaver,’ he announced.

There were four obituary notices devoted to Marlasca. One from the family, another from the law firm, one from the Barcelona Bar Association and the last from the cultural association of the Ateneo Barcelonés.

‘That’s what comes from being rich. You die five or six times,’ Don Basilio pointed out.

The announcements were not in themselves very interesting – pleadings for the immortal soul of the deceased, a note explaining that the funeral would be for close friends and family only, grandiose verses lauding a great, erudite citizen, an irreplaceable member of Barcelona society, and so on.

‘The type of thing you’re interested in probably appeared a day or two earlier, or later,’ Brotons said.

We checked through the papers covering the week of Marlasca’s death and found a sequence of news items relating to the lawyer. The first reported that the distinguished lawyer had died in an accident. Don Basilio read the text out loud.

‘This was written by a chimp,’ he pronounced. ‘Three redundant paragraphs that don’t say anything and only at the end does it explain that the death was accidental, but without saying what sort of accident it was.’

‘Here we have something more interesting,’ said Brotons.

An article published the following day explained that the police were investigating the circumstances of the accident. The most revealing piece of information was that, according to the forensic evidence, Marlasca had drowned.

‘Drowned?’ interrupted Don Basilio. ‘How? Where?’

‘It doesn’t say. Perhaps they had to shorten the item to include this urgent and extensive apologia for the sardana, a three-column article entitled “To the strains of the tenora: spirit and mettle”,’ Brotons remarked.

‘Does it say who was in charge of the investigation?’ I asked.

‘It mentions someone called Salvador. Ricardo Salvador,’ said Brotons.

We went over the rest of the news items related to the death of Marlasca, but there was nothing of any substance. The texts parroted one another, repeating a chorus that sounded too much like the official line supplied by the law firm of Valera & Co.

‘This has the distinct whiff of a cover-up,’ said Brotons.

I sighed, disheartened. I had hoped to find something more than sugary remembrances and hollow news items that threw no new light on the facts.

‘Didn’t you have a good contact in police headquarters?’ Don Basilio asked. ‘What was his name?’

‘Víctor Grandes,’ Brotons said.

‘Perhaps he could put Martín in touch with this person, Salvador.’

I cleared my throat and the two hefty men looked at me with a frown.

‘For reasons that have nothing to do with this matter, or perhaps because they’re too closely related, I’d rather not involve Inspector Grandes,’ I said.

Brotons and Don Basilio exchanged glances.

‘Right. Any other names that should be deleted from the list?’

‘Marcos and Castelo.’

‘I see you haven’t lost your talent for making friends,’ offered Don Basilio.

Brotons rubbed his chin.

‘Let’s not worry too much. I think I might be able to find another way in that will not arouse suspicion.’

‘If you find Salvador for me, I’ll sacrifice whatever you want, even a pig.’

‘With my gout I’ve given up pork, but I wouldn’t say no to a good cigar,’ Brotons said.

‘Make it two,’ added Don Basilio.

While I rushed off to a tobacconist’s on Calle Tallers in search of two specimens of the most exquisite and expensive Havana cigars, Brotons made a few discreet calls to police headquarters and confirmed that Salvador had left the police force, or rather that he had been made to leave, and had gone on to work as a corporate bodyguard as well as doing investigative work for various law firms in the city. When I returned to the newspaper offices to present my benefactors with their two cigars, the archivist handed me a note with an address:

Ricardo Salvador

Calle de la Lleona, 21. Top floor.

‘May the publisher-in-chief of La Vanguardia bless you,’ I said.

‘And may you live to see it.’

29

Calle de la Lleona, better known to locals as the Street of the Three Beds in honour of the notorious brothel it harboured, was an alleyway almost as dark as its reputation. It started in the shadowy arches of Plaza Real and extended into a damp crevice, far from sunlight, between old buildings piled on top of one another and sewn together by a perpetual web of clothes lines. The crumbling, ochre facades were dilapidated, and the slabs of stone covering the ground had been bathed in blood during the years when the city had been ruled by the gun. More than once I’d used the setting as a backdrop to my stories in City of the Damned and even now, deserted and forgotten, it still smelled of crime and gunpowder. The grim surroundings seemed to indicate that Superintendent Salvador’s early retirement package from the police force had not been a generous one.

Number 21 was a modest property squeezed between two buildings that held it together like pincers. The main door was open, revealing a pool of shadows from which a steep, narrow staircase rose in a spiral. The floor was flooded with a dark, slimy liquid oozing from the cracks in the tiles. I climbed the steps as best I could, without letting go of the handrail, but not trusting it either. There was only one door on every landing. Judging by the appearance of the building I didn’t think that any of the apartments could be larger than forty square metres. A small skylight crowned the stairwell and bathed the upper floors in a tenuous light. The door to the top-floor apartment was at the end of a short corridor and I was surprised to find it open. I rapped with my knuckles, but got no reply. The door opened onto a small sitting room containing an armchair, a table and a bookshelf filled with books and brass boxes. A sort of kitchen-cum-washing area occupied the adjoining room. The saving grace in that cell was a terrace that led to the flat roof. The door to the terrace was also open and a fresh breeze blew through it, bringing with it the smell of cooking and laundry from the rooftops of the old town.

‘Is anyone home?’ I called out.

Nobody answered, so I walked over to the terrace door and stepped outside. A jungle of roofs, towers, water tanks, lightning conductors and chimneys spread out in every direction. Before I was able to take another step, I felt the touch of cold metal on the back of my neck and heard the metallic click of a revolver as the hammer was cocked. All I could think to do was raise my hands and not move even an eyebrow.

‘My name is David Martín. I got your address from police headquarters. I wanted to speak to you about a case you handled.’

‘Do you usually go into people’s homes uninvited, Señor David Martín?’

‘The door was open. I called out but you can’t have heard me. Can I put my hands down?’

‘I didn’t tell you to put them up. Which case?’

‘The death of Diego Marlasca. I rent the house that was his last home. The tower house in Calle Flassaders.’

He said nothing. I could still feel the revolver pressing against my back.

‘Señor Salvador?’ I asked.

‘I’m wondering whether it wouldn’t be better to blow your head off right now.’

‘Don’t you want to hear my story first?’

The pressure from the revolver seemed to lessen and I heard the hammer being uncocked. I slowly turned round. Ricardo Salvador was an imposing figure, with grey hair and pale blue eyes that penetrated like needles. I guessed that he must have been about fifty but it would have been difficult to find men half his age who would dare get in his way. I gulped. Salvador lowered the revolver and turned his back to me, returning to the apartment.

‘I apologise for the welcome,’ he mumbled.

I followed him to the minute kitchen and stopped in the doorway. Salvador left the pistol on the sink and lit the stove with bits of paper and cardboard. He pulled out a coffee pot and looked at me questioningly.

‘No, thanks.’

‘It’s the only good thing I have, I warn you,’ he said.

‘Then I’ll have one with you.’

Salvador put a couple of generous spoonfuls of coffee into the pot, filled it with water and put it on the flames.

‘Who has spoken to you about me?’

‘A few days ago I visited Señora Marlasca, the widow. She’s the one who told me about you. She said you were the only person who had tried to discover the truth and it had cost you your job.’

‘That’s one way of describing it, I suppose,’ he said.

I noticed that at my mention of the widow his expression darkened, and I wondered what might have happened between them during those unfortunate days.

‘How is she?’ he asked. ‘Señora Marlasca.’

‘I think she misses you.’

Salvador nodded, his fierce manner crumbling.

‘I haven’t been to see her for a long time.’

‘She thinks you blame her for what happened. I think she’d like to see you again, even though so much time has gone by.’

‘Perhaps you’re right. Maybe I should go and pay her a visit…’

‘Can you talk to me about what happened?’

Salvador recovered his severe expression.

‘What do you want to know?’

‘Marlasca’s widow told me that you never accepted the official line that her husband took his own life. She said you had suspicions.’

‘More than suspicions. Has anyone told you how Marlasca died?’

‘All I know is that people said it was an accident.’

‘Marlasca died by drowning. At least, that’s what the police report said.’

‘How did he drown?’

‘There’s only one way of drowning, but I’ll come back to that later. The curious thing is where he drowned.’

‘In the sea?’

Salvador smiled. It was a dark, bitter smile, like the coffee that was brewing.

‘Are you sure you want to hear this?’

‘I’ve never been surer of anything in my life.’

He handed me a cup and looked me up and down, assessing me.

‘I assume you’ve visited that son-of-a-bitch Valera.’

‘If you mean Marlasca’s partner, he’s dead. The one I spoke to was his son.’

‘Another son-of-a-bitch, except he has fewer guts. I don’t know what he told you, but I’m sure he didn’t say that between them they managed to get me thrown out of the police force and turned me into a pariah who couldn’t even beg for money in the streets.’

‘I’m afraid he forgot to include that in his version of events,’ I conceded.

‘It doesn’t surprise me.’

‘You were going to tell me how Marlasca drowned.’

‘That’s where it gets interesting,’ said Salvador. ‘Did you know that Señor Marlasca, apart from being a lawyer, a scholar and a writer, had, as a young man, won the annual Christmas swim across the port organised by the Barcelona Swimming Club?’

‘How can a champion swimmer drown?’ I asked.

‘The question is where did he drown. Señor Marlasca’s body was found in the pond on the roof of the Water Reservoir building in Ciudadela Park. Do you know the place?’

I swallowed and nodded. It was there that I’d first encountered Corelli.

‘If you know it, you’ll know that, when it’s full, it’s barely a metre deep. It’s essentially a basin. The day the lawyer was found dead, the reservoir was half-empty and the water level was no more than sixty centimetres.’

‘A champion swimmer doesn’t drown in sixty centimetres of water, just like that,’ I observed.

‘That’s what I said to myself.’

‘Were there other points of view?’

Salvador smiled bitterly.

‘For a start, it’s doubtful whether he drowned at all. The pathologist who carried out the autopsy found water in the lungs, but his report said that death had occurred as a result of heart failure.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘When Marlasca fell into the pond, or when he was pushed, he was on fire. His body had third-degree burns on the torso, arms and face. According to the pathologist, the body could have been alight for almost a minute before it came into contact with the water. The remains of the lawyer’s clothes showed the presence of some type of solvent on the fabrics. Marlasca was burned alive.’

It took me a few minutes to digest all this.

‘Why would anyone want to do something like that?’

‘A settling of scores? Pure cruelty? You choose. My opinion is that somebody wanted to delay the identification of Marlasca’s body in order to gain time and confuse the police.’

‘Who?’

‘Jaco Corbera.’

‘Irene Sabino’s agent.’

‘Who disappeared the same day Marlasca died, together with the balance from a personal account in the Banco Hispano Colonial which his wife didn’t know about.’

‘A hundred thousand French francs,’ I said.

Salvador looked at me, intrigued.

‘How did you know?’

‘It’s not important. What was Marlasca doing on the roof of the reservoir anyway? It’s not exactly on the way to anywhere.’

‘That’s another confusing point. We found a diary in Marlasca’s study in which he had written down an appointment there at five in the afternoon. Or that’s what it looked like. In the diary he’d only specified a time, a place and an initial. C. Probably for Corbera.’

‘Then what do you think happened?’ I asked.

‘What I think, and what the evidence suggests, is that Jaco fooled Irene into manipulating Marlasca. As you probably know, the lawyer was obsessed with all that mumbo-jumbo about seances, especially since the death of his son. Jaco had a partner, Damián Roures, who was mixed up in that world. A real fraudster. Between the two of them, and with the help of Irene Sabino, they conned Marlasca, promising that they could help him make contact with the boy in the spirit world. Marlasca was a desperate man, ready to believe anything. That trio of vermin had organised the perfect sting but then Jaco became too greedy for his own good. Some think that Sabino didn’t act in bad faith, that she genuinely was in love with Marlasca and believed in all that supernatural nonsense, just as he did. It is a possibility but I don’t buy it, and seeing how things turned out, it’s irrelevant. Jaco knew that Marlasca had those funds in the bank and decided to get him out of the way and disappear with the money, leaving a trail of chaos behind him. The appointment in the diary may well have been a red herring left by Sabino or Jaco. There was no way at all of knowing whether Marlasca himself had noted it down.’

‘And where did the hundred thousand francs Marlasca had in the Hispano Colonial come from?’

‘Marlasca had paid that money into the account himself, in cash, the year before. I haven’t the faintest idea where he could have laid hands on a sum of that size. What I do know is that the remainder was withdrawn, in cash, on the morning of the day Marlasca died. Later, the lawyers said that the money had been transferred to some sort of discretionary fund and had not disappeared; they said Marlasca had simply decided to reorganise his finances. But I find it hard to believe that a man should reorganise his finances, moving almost one hundred thousand francs in the morning, and be discovered, burned alive, in the afternoon, without there being some connection. I don’t believe this money ended up in some mysterious fund. To this day, there has been nothing to convince me that the money didn’t end up in the hands of Jaco Corbera and Irene Sabino. At least at first, because I doubt that she saw any of it after Jaco disappeared.’

‘What happened to Irene?’

‘That’s another aspect that makes me think Jaco tricked both of his accomplices. Shortly after Marlasca’s death, Roures left the afterlife industry and opened a shop selling magic tricks on Calle Princesa. As far as I know, he’s still there. Irene Sabino worked for a couple more years in increasingly tawdry clubs and cabarets. The last thing I heard, she was prostituting herself in El Raval and living in poverty. She obviously didn’t get a single franc. Nor did Roures.’

‘And Jaco?’

‘He probably left the country under a false name and is living comfortably somewhere off the proceeds.’

The whole story, far from clarifying things in my mind, only raised more questions. Salvador must have noticed my unease and gave me a commiserating smile.

‘Valera and his friends in the town hall managed to persuade the press to publish the story about an accident. He resolved the matter with a grand funeral: he didn’t want to muddy the reputation of the law firm, whose client list included many members of the town hall and the city council. Nor did he wish to draw attention to Marlasca’s strange behaviour during the last twelve months of his life, from the moment he abandoned his family and associates and decided to buy a ruin in a part of town he had never set his well-shod foot in so that he could devote himself to writing, or at least that’s what his partner said.’

‘Did Valera say what sort of thing Marlasca wanted to write?’

‘A book of poems, or something like that.’

‘And you believed him?’

‘I’ve seen many strange things in my work, my friend, but a wealthy lawyer who leaves everything to go and write sonnets is not part of the repertoire.’

‘So?’

‘So the reasonable thing would have been for me to forget the whole matter and do as I was told.’

‘But that’s not what happened.’

‘No. And not because I’m a hero or an idiot. I did it because every time I saw the suffering of that poor woman, Marlasca’s widow, it made my stomach turn, and I couldn’t look at myself in the mirror without doing what I was supposedly being paid to do.’

He pointed around the miserable, cold place that was his home.

‘Believe me: if I’d known what was coming I would have preferred to be a coward and wouldn’t have stepped out of line. I can’t say I wasn’t warned at police headquarters. With the lawyer dead and buried, it was time to turn the page and put all our efforts into the pursuit of starving anarchists and schoolteachers with suspicious ideologies.’

‘You say buried… Where is Diego Marlasca buried?’

‘In the family vault in San Gervasio Cemetery, I think, not far from the house where the widow lives. May I ask why you are so interested in this matter? And don’t tell me your curiosity was aroused just because you live in the tower house.’

‘It’s hard to explain.’

‘If you want a friendly piece of advice, look at me and learn from my mistakes. Let it go.’

‘I’d like to. The problem is that I don’t think the matter will let me go.’

Salvador watched me for a long time. Then he took a piece of paper and wrote down a number.

‘This is the telephone number of the downstairs neighbours. They’re good people and the only ones who have a telephone in the whole building. You can get hold of me there, or leave me a message. Ask for Emilio. If you need any help, don’t hesitate to call. And watch out. Jaco disappeared from the scene many years ago, but there are still people who don’t want this business stirred up again. A hundred thousand francs is a lot of money.’

I took the note and put it away.

‘Thank you.’

‘Not at all. Anyhow, what more can they do to me now?’

‘Would you have a photograph of Diego Marlasca? I haven’t found one anywhere in the tower house.’

‘I don’t know… I think I must have one somewhere. Let me have a look.’

Salvador walked over to a desk in a corner of the sitting room and pulled out a brass box full of bits of paper.

‘I still have things from the case… As you see, even after all those years, I haven’t learned my lesson. Here. Look. This photograph was given to me by the widow.’

He handed me an old studio portrait of a tall, good-looking man in his forties, who was smiling at the camera, against a velvet backdrop. I tried to read those clear eyes, wondering how they could possibly conceal the dark world I had found in the pages of Lux Aeterna.

‘May I keep it?’

Salvador hesitated.

‘I suppose so. But don’t lose it.’

‘I promise I’ll return it.’

‘Promise me you’ll be careful and I’d be much happier. And that if you’re not, and you get into a mess, you’ll call me.’

We shook on it.

‘I promise.’

30

The sun was setting as I left Ricardo Salvador on his cold roof terrace and returned to Plaza Real. The square was bathed in a dusty light that tinted the figures of passers-by with a reddish hue. From there I set off walking and ended up at the only place in town where I always felt welcome and protected. When I reached Calle Santa Ana, the Sempere & Sons bookshop was about to close. Twilight was advancing over the city and the sky was breached by a line of blue and purple. I stopped in front of the shop window and saw that Sempere’s son was saying goodbye to a customer at the front door. When he saw me he smiled and greeted me with a shyness that spoke of his innate decency.

‘I was just thinking about you, Martín. Everything all right?’

‘Couldn’t be better.’

‘It shows in your face. Here, come in, I’ll make you some coffee.’

He held the shop door open and showed me in. I stepped into the bookshop and breathed in that perfume of paper and magic that strangely no one had ever thought of bottling. Sempere’s son took me to the back room, where he set about preparing a pot of coffee.

‘How is your father? He looked fragile the other day.’

Sempere’s son nodded, as if appreciative of my concern. I realised that he probably didn’t have anyone to talk to about the subject.

‘He’s seen better times, that’s for sure. The doctor says he has to be careful with his angina, but he insists on working more than ever. Sometimes I have to get angry with him, but he seems to think that if he leaves me to look after the shop the business will fail. This morning, when I got up, I asked him to stay in bed and not to come down to work today. Well, would you believe it, three minutes later I found him in the dining room, putting on his shoes.’

‘He’s a man with fixed ideas,’ I agreed.

‘He’s as stubborn as a mule,’ replied Sempere’s son. ‘Thank goodness we now have a bit of help, otherwise…’

I adopted my best expression of surprise and innocence, which always came in handy and needed little practice.

‘The girl,’ Sempere’s son explained. ‘Isabella, your apprentice. That’s why I was thinking about you. I hope you don’t mind if she spends a few hours here each day. The truth is that, with the way things are, I’m very grateful for the help, but if you have any objections…’

I suppressed a smile when I noticed how he savoured the double ‘l’ in Isabella.

‘Well, as long as it’s only temporary. The truth is, Isabella is a good girl. Intelligent and hard-working,’ I said. ‘And trustworthy. We get on very well.’

‘She says you’re a despot.’

‘Is that what she says?’

‘In fact, she has a nickname for you: Mr Hyde.’

‘How charming. Pay no attention to her. You know what women are like.’

‘Yes, I do,’ said Sempere’s son in a tone that made it clear that he might know a lot of things, but certainly hadn’t the faintest clue about women.

‘Isabella might say that about me, but don’t think she doesn’t tell me things about you,’ I countered.

I noticed a change in his expression, and let my words sink through the layers of his armour. He handed me a cup of coffee with an attentive smile and rescued the conversation using a trick that would have been unworthy even of a second-rate operetta.

‘Goodness knows what she says about me.’

I left him to soak in uncertainty for a few moments.

‘Would you like to know?’ I asked casually, hiding a smile behind my cup.

Sempere’s son shrugged his shoulders.

‘She says you’re a good and generous man; she says that people don’t understand you because you’re shy and they can’t see beyond that, and, I quote, you have the presence of a film star and a fascinating personality.’

Sempere’s son looked at me in astonishment.

‘I’m not going to lie to you, Sempere, my friend. The truth is I’m glad you’ve brought up the subject because I’ve been wanting to talk to you about it and didn’t know how.’

‘Talk about what?’

I lowered my voice and fixed my eyes on his.

‘Between you and me, Isabella wants to work here because she admires you and, I fear, is secretly in love with you.’

Sempere gulped.

‘But, pure love, eh? Spiritual. Like the love of a Dickens heroine, if you see what I mean. No frivolities or childish nonsense. Isabella might be young, but she’s a real woman. You must have noticed, I’m sure…’

‘Now that you mention it…’

‘And I’m not referring to her – if you’ll pardon me – exquisitely tender frame, but to her kindness and the inner beauty that is just waiting for the right moment to emerge and make some fortunate man the happiest in the world.’

Sempere didn’t know where to look.

‘Besides, she has hidden talents. She speaks languages. She plays the piano like an angel. She has a good head for numbers, as good as any Isaac Newton. And to cap it all she’s a wonderful cook. Look at me. I’ve put on a few kilos since she started working for me. Delicacies that even in La Tour d’Argent… Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed?’

‘She didn’t mention that she could cook…’

‘I’m talking about love at first sight.’

‘Well, really…’

‘Do you know what the matter is? Deep down, although she gives the impression she’s an untamed shrew, the girl is docile and shy to a pathological degree. I blame the nuns: they unhinge them with all those stories of hell and all those sewing lessons. Long live secular education.’

‘Well, I would have sworn she took me for a little less than an idiot,’ Sempere assured me.

‘There you are. Irrefutable proof. Sempere, my friend, when a woman treats you like an idiot it means her hormones are racing!’

‘Are you sure about that?’

‘As sure as the Bank of Spain. Believe me; I know quite a lot about this subject.’

‘That’s what my father says. And what am I to do?’

Well, that depends. Do you like the girl?’

‘Like her? I don’t know. How do you know if-? ’

‘It’s very simple. Do you look at her furtively and feel like biting her?’

‘Biting her?’

‘On her backside, for example.’

‘Señor Martín!’

‘Don’t be bashful; we’re among gentlemen. It’s a known fact that we men are the missing link between the pirate and the pig. Do you like her or don’t you?’

‘Well, Isabella is an attractive girl.’

‘What else?’

‘Intelligent. Pleasant. Hard-working.’

‘Go on.’

‘And a good Christian, I think. Not that I’m much of a practising Catholic, but…’

‘Don’t I know it. Isabella almost lives in the church. Those nuns… I tell you!’

‘But quite frankly, it had never occurred to me to bite her.’

‘It hadn’t occurred to you until I mentioned it.’

‘I must say, I think talking about her like that – or about any other woman – shows a lack of respect. You should be ashamed…’ protested Sempere’s son.

‘Mea culpa,’ I intoned, raising my hands in a gesture of surrender. ‘But never mind: we each show our devotion in our own way. I’m a frivolous, superficial creature, hence my canine focus, but you, with that aurea gravitas of yours, are a man of mysterious and profound feelings. The important thing is that the girl adores you and that the feeling is mutual.’

‘Well…’

‘Don’t you “well” me. Let’s face it, Sempere. You’re a respectable and responsible man. Had it been me, what can I say, but you’re not a fellow to play fast and loose with the noble, pure feelings of a ripe young girl. Am I mistaken?’

‘I suppose not.’

‘Well that’s it, then.’

‘What is?’

‘Isn’t it obvious?’

‘No.’

‘It’s time to go courting.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘Courting or, in scientific terms, time for a kiss and a cuddle. Look here, Sempere, for some strange reason, centuries of supposed civilisation have brought us to a situation in which one cannot go sidling up to women on street corners, or asking them to marry us, just like that. First there has to be courtship.’

‘Marry? Have you gone mad?’

‘What I’m trying to say is that perhaps – and deep down this is your idea even if you’re not aware of it – today or tomorrow or the next day, when you get over all this shaking and dribbling over her, you could take Isabella out, when she finishes work at the bookshop. Take her out for afternoon tea somewhere special, and you’ll realise once and for all that you were made for one another. You could take her to Els Quatre Gats, where they’re so stingy they dim the lights to save on electricity – that always helps in these situations. Ask for some curd cheese for the girl with a good spoonful of honey; that always whets the appetite. Then, casually, you let her have a swig or two of that muscatel that goes straight to the head. At that point, placing a hand on her knee, you stun her with that sweet talk you hide so well, you rascal.’

‘But I don’t know anything about her, or what interests her, or…’

‘She’s interested in the same things as you. She’s interested in books, in literature, in the very smell of the treasures you have here – and in the penny novels with their promise of romance and adventure. She’s interested in brushing aside loneliness and in not wasting time trying to understand that in this rotten world nothing is worth a single céntimo if there isn’t someone to share it with. Now you know the essentials. The rest you can find out and enjoy as you go along.’

Sempere looked thoughtful, glancing first at his cup of coffee, which he hadn’t touched, then at yours truly, who with great difficulty was trying to maintain the smile of a stock-market trader.

‘I’m not sure whether to thank you or report you to the police,’ he said at last.

Just then, Sempere senior’s heavy footsteps were heard in the bookshop. A few seconds later he put his head round the door of the back room and stood there looking at us with a frown.

‘What’s going on? The shop is left unattended and you’re sitting here chattering as if it were a bank holiday. What if a customer had come in? Or some scoundrel trying to make off with our goods?’

Sempere’s son sighed, rolling his eyes.

‘Don’t worry, Señor Sempere. Books are the only things in this world that no one wants to steal,’ I said, winking at him.

His face lit up with a knowing smile. Sempere’s son took the opportunity to escape from my clutches and slink off back to the bookshop. His father sat next to me and sniffed at the cup of coffee his son had left untouched.

‘What does the doctor say about the effects of caffeine on the heart?’ I asked.

‘That man can’t even find his backside with an anatomy book. What could he know about the heart?’

‘More than you, I’m sure,’ I replied, snatching the cup from him.

‘I’m as strong as an ox, Martín.’

‘You’re a mule, that’s what you are. Please go back upstairs and get into bed.’

‘It’s only worth staying in bed if you’re young and in good company.’

‘If you want company, I’ll find someone for you, but I don’t think your heart is up to it right now.’

‘Martín, at my age, eroticism is reduced to enjoying caramel custard and looking at widows’ necks. The one I’m worried about here is my heir. Any progress in that field?’

‘We’re fertilising the soil and sowing the seeds. We’ll have to see if the weather is favourable and we get a harvest. In two or three days I’ll be able to give you an estimate about the first shoots that is sixty to seventy per cent reliable.’

Sempere gave a satisfied smile.

‘A masterstroke, sending Isabella to be our shop assistant,’ he said. ‘But don’t you think she’s a bit young for my son?’

‘He’s the one who seems a bit green, if I may be frank. He’s got to get his act together or Isabella will eat him alive. Thank goodness he’s a decent sort, otherwise…’

‘How can I repay you?’

‘By going upstairs and getting into bed. If you need some spicy company, take a copy of Moll Flanders.’

‘You’re right. Good old Defoe never lets you down.’

‘Not even if he tries. Go on, off to bed.’

Sempere stood up. He moved with difficulty and his breathing was laboured, with a hoarse rattle that made one’s hair stand on end. I took his arm and noticed that his skin was cold.

‘Don’t be alarmed, Martín. It’s my metabolism; it’s a little slow.’

‘Today it’s as slow as War and Peace.’

‘A little nap and I’ll be as good as new.’

I decided to go up with him to the apartment where father and son lived, above the bookshop, and make sure he got under the blankets. It took us a quarter of an hour to negotiate the stairs. On the way we met one of the neighbours, an affable secondary-school teacher called Don Anacleto, who taught language and literature at the Jesuits’ school in Calle Caspe.

‘How’s life looking today, Sempere, my friend?’

‘Rather steep, Don Anacleto.’

With the teacher’s help I managed to reach the first floor with Sempere practically hanging from my neck.

‘If you will forgive me, I must retire to rest after a long day spent fighting that pack of primates I have for pupils,’ the teacher announced. ‘I’m telling you, this country is going to disintegrate within one generation. They’ll tear each other to pieces like rats.’

Sempere made a gesture to indicate that I shouldn’t pay too much attention to Don Anacleto.

‘He’s a good man,’ he whispered, ‘but he drowns in a glass of water.’

When I stepped into the apartment I was suddenly reminded of that distant morning when I had arrived there covered in blood, holding a copy of Great Expectations. I recalled how Sempere had carried me up to his home and given me a cup of hot cocoa while we were waiting for the doctor, and how he’d whispered soothing words, cleaning the blood off my body with a warm towel and a gentleness that nobody had ever shown me before. At that time Sempere was a strong man and to me he seemed like a giant in every way; without him I don’t think I would have survived those years of scant hope. Little or nothing remained of that strength as I held him in my arms to help him into bed and covered him with a couple of blankets. I sat down next to him and took his hand, not knowing what to do.

‘Listen, if we’re both going to start crying our eyes out you’d better leave,’ he said.

‘Take care, you hear me?’

‘I’ll wrap myself in cotton wool, don’t worry.’

I nodded and started walking towards the door.

‘Martín?’

At the doorway I turned round. Sempere was looking at me with the same anxiety he had shown that morning long ago, when I’d lost a few teeth and much of my innocence. I left before he could ask me what was wrong.

31

One of the first expedients of the professional writer that Isabella had learned from me was the art of procrastination. Every veteran in the trade knows that any activity, from sharpening a pencil to cataloguing daydreams, has precedence over sitting down at one’s desk and squeezing one’s brain. Isabella had absorbed this fundamental lesson by osmosis and when I got home, instead of finding her at her desk, I surprised her in the kitchen as she was giving the last touches to a dinner that smelled and looked as if its preparation had been a question of a few hours.

‘Are we celebrating something?’ I asked.

‘With that face of yours, I don’t think so.’

‘What’s the smell?’

‘Caramelised duck with baked pears and chocolate sauce. I found the recipe in one of your cookery books.’

‘I don’t own any cookery books.’

Isabella got up and brought over a leather-bound volume, which she placed on the table: The 101 Best Recipes of French Cuisine by Michel Aragon.

‘That’s what you think. On the second row of the library bookshelves I’ve found all sort of things, including a handbook on marital hygiene by Doctor Pérez-Aguado with some very suggestive illustrations and gems such as “Woman, in accordance with the divine plan, has no knowledge of carnal desire and her spiritual and sentimental fulfilment is sublimated in the natural exercise of motherhood and household chores.” You’ve got a veritable King Solomon’s mine there.’

‘Can you tell me what you were looking for on the second row of the shelves?’

‘Inspiration. Which I found.’

‘But of a culinary persuasion. We agreed that you were going to write every day, with or without inspiration.’

‘I’m stuck. And it’s your fault, because you’ve got me moonlighting and mixed up in your schemes with the immaculate son of Sempere.’

‘Do you think it’s right to make fun of the man who’s madly in love with you?’

‘What?’

‘You heard me. Sempere’s son confessed to me that you’ve robbed him of sleep. Literally. He can’t sleep, he can’t eat and he can’t even pee, poor guy, for thinking so much about you all day.’

‘You’re delirious.’

‘The one who is delirious is poor Sempere. You should have seen him. I came very close to shooting him, to put an end to his pain and misery.’

‘But he pays no attention to me whatsoever,’ Isabella protested.

‘Because he doesn’t know how to open his heart and find the words with which to express his feelings. We men are like that. Brutish and primitive.’

‘He had no trouble finding words to tell me off for not putting a collection of the National Episodes in the right order!’

‘That’s not the same. Administrative procedure is one thing, the language of passion another.’

‘Nonsense.’

‘There’s no nonsense in love, my dear assistant. Changing the subject, are we having dinner or aren’t we?’

Isabella had set a table to match her banquet, using a whole arsenal of dishes, cutlery and glasses I’d never seen before.

‘I don’t know why, if you have all these beautiful things, you don’t use them. They were all in boxes, in the room next to the laundry,’ said Isabella. ‘Typical man!’

I picked up one of the knives and examined it in the light of the candles that Isabella had placed on the table. I realised these household utensils belonged to Diego Marlasca and this made me lose my appetite altogether.

‘Is anything the matter?’ asked Isabella.

I shook my head. My assistant served the food and stood there looking at me expectantly. I tasted a mouthful and smiled.

‘Very good,’ I said.

‘It’s a bit leathery, I think. The recipe said you had to cook it over a low flame for goodness knows how long, but on your stove the heat is either non-existent or scorching, with nothing in between.’

‘It’s good,’ I repeated, eating without appetite.

Isabella kept giving me furtive looks. We continued to eat in silence, the tinkling of the cutlery and plates our only company.

‘Were you serious about Sempere’s son?’

I nodded, without glancing up from my plate.

‘And what else did he say about me?’

‘He said you have a classical beauty, you’re intelligent, intensely feminine – that’s how old-fashioned he is – and he feels there’s a spiritual connection between you.’

Isabella threw me a murderous look.

‘Swear you’re not making this up,’ she said.

I put my right hand on the cookery book and raised my left hand.

‘I swear on The 101 Best Recipes of French Cuisine,’ I declared.

‘One usually swears with the other hand.’

I changed hands and repeated the performance with a solemn expression.

Isabella puffed.

‘What am I going to do?’

‘I don’t know. What do people do when they’re in love? Go for a stroll, go dancing…’

‘But I’m not in love with this man.’

I went on sampling the caramelised duck, ignoring her insistent stare. After a while, Isabella banged her hand on the table.

‘Will you please look at me? This is all your fault.’

I calmly put down my knife and fork, wiped my mouth with the napkin and looked at her.

‘What am I going to do?’ she asked again.

‘That depends. Do you like Sempere or don’t you?’

A cloud of doubt crossed her face.

‘I don’t know. To begin with, he’s a bit old for me.’

‘He’s practically my age,’ I pointed out. ‘One or two years older, at the most. Maybe three.’

‘Or four or five.’

I sighed.

‘He’s in the prime of his life. Hadn’t we decided that you like them mature?’

‘Don’t tease me.’

‘Isabella, who am I to tell you what to do?’

‘That’s a good one!’

‘Let me finish. What I mean is that this is something between Sempere’s son and you. If you want my advice, I’d say give him a chance. Nothing else. If one of these days he decides to take the first step and asks you out, let’s say, to have tea, accept the invitation. Perhaps you’ll get talking and you’ll end up being friends, or maybe you won’t. But I think Sempere is a good man, his interest in you is genuine and I dare say, if you think about it, deep down you feel something for him too.’

‘You’re mad.’

‘But Sempere isn’t. And I think that not to respect the affection and admiration he feels for you would be mean. And you’re not mean.’

‘This is emotional blackmail.’

‘No, it’s life.’

Isabella looked daggers at me. I smiled.

‘Will you at least finish your dinner?’ she ordered.

I bolted down the food on my plate, mopped it up with bread, and let out a sigh of satisfaction.

‘What’s for pudding?’

After dinner I left a pensive Isabella going over her doubts and anxieties in the reading room and went up to the study in the tower. I pulled out the photograph of Diego Marlasca lent to me by Salvador and left it by the base of the table lamp. Then I looked through the small citadel of writing pads, notes and sheets of paper I had been accumulating for the boss. Still feeling the chill of Diego Marlasca’s cutlery in my hands, I did not find it hard to imagine him sitting there, gazing at the same view over the rooftops of the Ribera quarter. I took one of my pages at random and began to read. I recognised the words and sentences because I’d composed them, but the troubled spirit that fed them felt more remote than ever. I let the sheet of paper fall to the floor and looked up only to meet my own reflection in the windowpane, a stranger in the blue darkness burying the city. I knew I was not going to be able to work that night, that I would be incapable of putting together a single paragraph for the boss. I turned off the lamp and stayed there in the dark, listening to the wind scratching at the windows and imagining Diego Marlasca in flames, throwing himself into the water of the reservoir, while the last bubbles of air left his lips and the freezing liquid filled his lungs.

I awoke at dawn, my body aching from being encased in the armchair. As I got up I heard the grinding of two or three cogs in my anatomy. I dragged myself to the window and opened it wide. The flat rooftops in the old town shone with frost and a purple sky wreathed itself around Barcelona. At the sound of the bells of Santa María del Mar, a cloud of black wings took to the air from a dovecote. The smell of the docks and the coal ash issuing from neighbouring chimneys was borne on a biting cold wind.

I went down to the kitchen to make some coffee. I glanced at the larder and was astonished. Since Isabella’s arrival in the house, it looked more like the Quílez grocer’s in Rambla de Cataluña. Among the parade of exotic delicacies imported by Isabella’s father, I found a tin of English chocolate biscuits and decided to have some. Half an hour later, once my veins were pumping with sugar and caffeine, my brain started to work and I had the brilliant idea of beginning the day by complicating my existence even further, if that was possible. As soon as the shops opened, I’d pay a visit to the one selling items for conjurers and magicians in Calle Princesa.

‘What are you doing up so early?’

Isabella, the voice of my conscience, was observing me from the doorway.

‘Eating biscuits.’

Isabella sat at the table and poured herself a cup of coffee. She looked as if she hadn’t slept all night.

‘My father says this was the Queen Mother’s favourite brand.’

‘No wonder she looked so strapping.’

Isabella took one of the biscuits and bit into it distractedly.

‘Have you thought about what you’re going to do? About Sempere, I mean…’

She threw me a venomous look.

‘And what are you going to do today? Nothing good, I’m sure.’

‘A couple of errands.’

‘Right.’

‘Right, right? Or “Right, I don’t believe you”?’

Isabella set the cup on the table, her face as severe as that of a judge.

‘Why do you never talk about whatever it is you’re involved in with that man, the boss?’

‘Among other things, for your own good.’

‘For my own good. Of course. How stupid could I be? By the way, I forgot to mention that your friend, the inspector, came by yesterday.’

‘Grandes? Was he on his own?’

‘No. He came with two thugs as large as wardrobes with faces like pointers.’

The thought of Marcos and Castelo at my door tied my stomach in knots.

‘And what did Grandes want?’

‘He didn’t say.’

‘What did he say, then?’

‘He asked me who I was.’

‘And what did you reply?’

‘I said I was your lover.’

‘Outstanding.’

‘Well, one of the large ones seemed to find it very amusing.’

Isabella took another biscuit and devoured it in two bites. She noticed me looking at her and immediately stopped chewing.

‘What did I say?’ she asked, projecting a shower of biscuit crumbs.

32

A sliver of light fell through the blanket of clouds, illuminating the red paintwork of the shopfront in Calle Princesa. The establishment selling conjuring tricks stood behind a carved wooden canopy. Its glass doors revealed only the bare outlines of the gloomy interior. Black velvet curtains were draped across cases displaying masks and Victorian-style apparatus: marked packs of cards, weighted daggers, books on magic, and bottles of polished glass containing a rainbow of liquids labelled in Latin and probably bottled in Albacete. The bell tinkled as I came through the door. An empty counter stood at the far end of the shop. I waited a few seconds, examining the collection of curiosities. I was searching for my face in a mirror that reflected everything in the shop except me when I glimpsed, out of the corner of my eye, a small figure peeping round the curtain of the back room.

‘An interesting trick, don’t you think?’ said the little man with grey hair and penetrating eyes.

I nodded.

‘How does it work?’

‘I don’t yet know. It arrived a few days ago from a manufacturer of trick mirrors in Istanbul. The creator calls it refractory inversion.’

‘It reminds one that nothing is as it seems,’ I said.

‘Except for magic. How can I help you, sir?’

‘Am I speaking to Señor Damián Roures?’

The little man nodded slowly, without blinking. I noticed that his lips were set in a bright smile which, like the mirror, was not what it seemed. Beneath it, his expression was cold and cautious.

‘Your shop was recommended to me.’

‘May I ask by whom?’

‘Ricardo Salvador.’

Any pretence of a smile disappeared from his face.

‘I didn’t know he was still alive. I haven’t seen him for twenty-five years.’

‘What about Irene Sabino?’

Roures sighed, muttering under his breath. He came round the counter and went over to the door. After hanging up the CLOSED sign he turned the key.

‘Who are you?’

‘My name is Martín. I’m trying to clarify the circumstances surrounding the death of Señor Diego Marlasca, whom I understand you knew.’

‘As far as I know, they were clarified many years ago. Señor Marlasca committed suicide.’

‘That was not my understanding.’

‘I don’t know what that policeman has told you. Resentment affects one’s memory, Señor… Martín. At the time, Salvador tried to peddle a conspiracy for which he had no proof. Everyone knew he was warming the widow Marlasca’s bed and trying to set himself up as the hero of the hour. As expected, his superiors made him toe the line and when he didn’t, they threw him out of the police force.’

‘He thinks there was an attempt to hide the truth.’

Roures scoffed.

‘The truth… don’t make me laugh. What they tried to hide was a scandal. Valera and Marlasca’s law firm had its fingers stuck in almost every pie that was being baked in this town. Nobody wanted a story like that to be uncovered. Marlasca had abandoned his position, his work and his marriage to lock himself up in that rambling old house doing God knows what. Anyone with half a brain could see that it wouldn’t end well.’

‘That didn’t stop you and your partner Jaco profiting from his madness by promising him he’d be able to make contact with the hereafter during your seances…’

‘I never promised him a thing. Those sessions were a simple amusement. Everyone knew. Don’t try to saddle me with the man’s death – because all I was doing was earning an honest living.’

‘And your partner, Jaco?’

‘I answer only for myself. What Jaco might have done is not my responsibility.’

‘Then he did do something.’

‘What do you want me to say? That he went off with the money Salvador insisted Marlasca had in a secret account? That he killed Marlasca and fooled us all?’

‘And that’s not what happened?’

Roures stared at me.

‘I don’t know. I haven’t seen him since the day Marlasca died. I told Salvador and the rest of the police everything I knew. I never lied. If Jaco did do something, I never knew about it or got anything out of it.’

‘What can you tell me about Irene Sabino?’

‘Irene loved Marlasca. She would never have plotted anything that might hurt him.’

‘Do you know what happened to her? Is she still alive?’

‘I think so; I was told she was working in a laundry in the Raval quarter. Irene was a good woman. Too good. That’s why she’s ended up the way she has. She believed in those things. She believed in them with all her heart.’

‘And Marlasca? What was he looking for in that world?’

‘Marlasca was involved in something, but don’t ask me what. Something that neither Jaco nor I had sold him. All I know is that I once heard Irene say that apparently Marlasca had found someone, someone I didn’t know – and, believe me, I knew everyone in the profession – who had promised him that if he did something, I don’t know what, he would recover his son Ismael from the dead.’

‘Did Irene say who that someone was?’

‘She’d never seen him. Marlasca didn’t let her. But she knew that he was afraid.’

‘Afraid of what?’

Roures clicked his tongue.

‘Marlasca thought that he was cursed.’

‘Can you explain?’

‘I’ve already told you. He was ill. He was convinced that something had got inside him.’

‘Something?’

‘A spirit. A parasite. I don’t know. Look, in this business you get to know a lot of people who are not exactly in their right mind. A personal tragedy hits them: they lose a lover or a fortune and they fall down the hole. The brain is the most fragile organ in the body. Señor Marlasca was not of sound mind; anyone could see that after talking to him for five minutes. That’s why he came to me.’

‘And you told him what he wanted to hear.’

‘No. I told him the truth.’

‘Your truth?’

‘The only truth I know. I thought he was seriously unbalanced and I didn’t want to take advantage of him. That sort of thing never ends well. In this business there is a line you don’t cross, if you know what’s good for you. We offer our services to people who come to us looking for a bit of fun, or some excitement and comfort from the world beyond, and we charge accordingly. But anyone who seems to be on the verge of losing their mind, we send home. It is a show like any other. What you want are spectators, not visionaries.’

‘Exemplary ethics. So, what did you say to Marlasca?’

‘I told him it was all a load of mumbo-jumbo. I told him I was a trickster who made a living organising seances for poor devils who had lost their loved ones and needed to believe that lovers, parents and friends were waiting for them in the next world. I told him there was nothing on the other side, just a giant void, and this world was all we had. I told him to forget about the spirits and return to his family.’

‘And he believed you?’

‘Obviously not. He stopped coming to the sessions and looked elsewhere for help.’

‘Where?’

‘Irene had grown up in the shacks of Bogatell beach and although she’d made a name for herself dancing and acting in the clubs on the Paralelo, she still belonged to that place. She told me she’d taken Marlasca to see a woman they called the Witch of Somorrostro, to ask for protection from the person to whom Marlasca was indebted.’

‘Did Irene mention the name of that person?’

‘If she did I can’t remember. As I said, they’d stopped coming to the seances.’

‘Andreas Corelli?’

‘I’ve never heard that name.’

‘Where can I find Irene Sabino?’

‘I’ve already told you all I know,’ Roures replied, exasperated.

‘One last question and I’ll go.’

‘Let’s see if that’s true.’

‘Do you remember ever hearing Marlasca mention something called Lux Aeterna?’

Roures frowned, shaking his head.

‘Thanks for you help.’

‘You’re welcome. And if at all possible don’t come back.’

I nodded and walked off towards the exit, Roures’s eyes following me distrustfully.

‘Wait,’ he called suddenly.

I turned round. The little man observed me, hesitating.

‘I seem to remember that Lux Aeterna was the name of some sort of religious pamphlet we sometimes used in the sessions in Calle Elisabets. It was part of a collection of similar books, probably loaned to us by the Afterlife Society, which had a library specialising in the occult. I don’t know if that’s what you’re referring to.’

‘Do you remember what the pamphlet was about?’

‘The person who was most familiar with it was my partner, Jaco – he managed the seances. But I seem to recall that Lux Aeterna was a poem about death and the seven names of the Son of Morning, Bringer of Light.’

‘Bringer of Light?’

Roures smiled.

‘Lucifer.’

33

When I left the shop I returned home, wondering what to do next. I was approaching the entrance to Calle Moncada when I saw him. Inspector Grandes was leaning against a wall and enjoying a cigarette. He smiled at me and waved and I crossed the street towards him.

‘I didn’t know you were interested in magic, Martín.’

‘Nor did I know that you were following me, inspector.’

‘I’m not following you. It’s just that you’re a difficult man to find and I decided that if the mountain wouldn’t come to me, I’d go to the mountain. Do you have five minutes to spare, for a drink? It’s on police headquarters.’

‘In that case… No chaperones today?’

‘Marcos and Castelo stayed behind doing paperwork, but if I’d told them I was coming to see you, I’m sure they’d have volunteered.’

We walked through the canyon of old palaces until we reached the Xampañet Tavern, where we found a table at the far end. A waiter, armed with a mop that stank of bleach, stared at us and Grandes asked for a couple of beers and a tapa of Manchego cheese. When the beers and the snack arrived, the inspector offered me the plate. I declined.

‘Do you mind? I’m always starving at this time of day.’

‘Bon appétit.’

Grandes wolfed down the cubes of cheese and licked his lips.

‘Didn’t anyone tell you that I came by your house yesterday?’

’I didn’t get the message until later.’

‘I understand. Hey, she’s gorgeous, the girl. What’s her name?’

‘Isabella.’

‘You rascal, some people have all the luck. I envy you. How old is the little sweetheart?’

I threw him a toxic look. The inspector smiled, obviously pleased.

‘A little bird told me you’ve been playing at detectives lately. Aren’t you going to leave anything to the professionals?’

‘What’s your little bird’s name?’

‘He’s more of a big bird. One of my superiors is a close friend of Valera, the lawyer.’

‘Are you also on the payroll?’

‘Not yet, my friend. You know me. I’m of the old school. Honour and all that shit.’

‘A shame.’

‘And tell me, how is poor Ricardo Salvador? Do you know? I haven’t heard that name for over twenty years. Everyone assumed he was dead.’

‘A premature diagnosis.’

‘And how is he?’

‘Alone, betrayed and forgotten.’

The inspector nodded slowly. ‘Makes one think of the future in this job, doesn’t it?’

‘I bet that in your case things will be different, and your promotion to the top is just a question of a couple of years. I can just imagine you as chief commissioner before the age of forty-five, kissing the hands of bishops and generals during the Corpus parade.’

Grandes ignored my sarcasm.

‘Speaking of hand-kissing, have you heard about your friend Vidal?’

Grandes never started a conversation without having an ace hidden up his sleeve. He watched me with a smile, relishing my anxiety.

‘What about him?’ I mumbled.

‘They say his wife tried to kill herself the other night.’

‘Cristina?’

‘Of course, you know her…’

I didn’t realise that I’d stood up and my hands were shaking.

‘Calm down. Señora de Vidal is all right. Just a fright. It seems that she overdid it with the laudanum. Will you sit down, Martín? Please.’

I sat down. My stomach was a bag of nails.

‘When was this?’

‘Two or three days ago.’

My mind filled with the image of Cristina in the window of Villa Helius a few days earlier, waving at me while I avoided her eyes and turned my back on her.

‘Martín?’ the inspector asked, waving a hand in front of my face as if he feared I’d lost my mind.

‘What?’

The inspector seemed to be genuinely worried.

‘Have you anything to tell me? I know you won’t believe me, but I’d like to help you.’

‘Do you still think it was me who killed Barrido and his partner?’

Grandes shook his head.

‘I’ve never believed it was you, but there are others who would like to.’

‘Then why are you still investigating me?’

‘Calm down. I’m not investigating you, Martín. I never have. The day I do investigate you, you’ll know. For the time being I’m only observing you. Because I like you and I’m concerned that you’re going to get yourself into a mess. Why won’t you trust me and tell me what’s going on?’

Our eyes met and for an instant I was tempted to tell him everything. I would have done so, had I known where to begin.

‘Nothing is going on, inspector.’

Grandes nodded and looked at me with pity, or perhaps it was only disappointment. He finished his beer and left a few coins on the table. He gave me a pat on the back and got up.

‘Look after yourself, Martín. And watch how you go. Not everyone holds you in the same esteem as I do.’

‘I’ll keep that in mind.’

It was almost midday when I got home, unable to stop thinking about what the inspector had told me. When I reached the tower house I climbed the steps slowly, as if my very soul was weighing me down. I opened the door of the apartment, fearing I’d find Isabella in the mood for conversation. The house was silent. I walked up the corridor until I reached the gallery and there I found her, asleep on the sofa, an open book on her chest – one of my old novels. I couldn’t help but smile. The temperature inside the house had dropped considerably during those autumn days and I was afraid Isabella might catch a chill. Sometimes I’d see her wandering about the apartment wrapped in a woollen shawl she wore over her shoulders. I went to her room to find the shawl, so that I could quietly cover her with it. Her door was ajar. Although I was in my own home, I’d rarely entered that room since Isabella had installed herself there and now felt uneasy doing so. I saw the shawl folded over a chair and went to fetch it. The room had Isabella’s sweet, lemony scent. The bed was still unmade and I leaned over to smooth out the sheets and blankets. I knew that when I applied myself to these domestic chores my moral standing rose in the eyes of my assistant.

It was then that I noticed there was something wedged between the mattress and the base of the bed. The corner of a piece of paper stuck out from under the folded sheet. When I tugged at it I realised it was a bundle of papers. I pulled it out completely and found that I was holding what looked like about twenty blue envelopes tied together with a ribbon. My whole body felt cold. I untied the knot in the ribbon and took one of the envelopes. It had my name and address on it. Where the return address should have been, it simply said: Cristina.

I sat on the bed with my back to the door and examined the envelopes, one by one. The first letter was a few weeks old, the last had been posted three days ago. All of the envelopes were open. I closed my eyes and felt the letters falling from my hands. I heard her breathing behind me, standing motionless in the doorway.

‘Forgive me,’ whispered Isabella.

She walked over slowly and knelt down to pick up the letters. When she’d gathered them together she handed them to me with a wounded look.

‘I did it to protect you,’ she said.

Her eyes filled with tears and she placed a hand on my shoulder.

‘Leave,’ I said.

I pushed her away and stood up. Isabella collapsed onto the floor, moaning as if something were burning inside her.

‘Leave this house.’

I left the apartment without even bothering to close the door behind me. Once outside, I faced a world of buildings and faces that seemed strange and distant. I started to walk aimlessly, oblivious to the cold and the rain-filled wind that was starting to lash the town with the breath of a curse.

34

The tram stopped by the gates of Bellesguard, a mansion standing on the edge of the city, at the foot of the hill. I walked on towards the entrance to San Gervasio Cemetery, following the yellowish beam projected through the rain by the tram lights. The walls of the graveyard rose some fifty metres ahead, a marble fortress from which emerged a mass of statues the colour of the storm. I found a cubicle next to the entrance where a guard, wrapped in a coat, was warming his hands over a brazier. When he saw me appear in the rain he looked startled and stood up. He examined me for a few seconds before opening the cubicle door.

‘I’m looking for the Marlasca family vault.’

‘It’ll be dark in less than half an hour. You’d better come back another day.’

‘The sooner you tell me where it is, the sooner I’ll leave.’

The guard checked a list and showed me the site by pointing a finger to a map of the graveyard hanging on the wall. I walked off without thanking him.

It wasn’t difficult to find the vault among the citadel of tombs and mausoleums crowded together inside the walls of the cemetery. The structure stood on a marble base. Modernist in style, the mausoleum was shaped like an arch formed by two wide flights of steps that spread out like an amphitheatre. The steps led to a gallery held up by columns, inside which was an atrium flanked by tombstones. The gallery was crowned by a dome, and the dome, in turn, by a marble figure sullied by the passage of time. Its face was hidden by a veil, but as I approached I had the impression that this sentinel from beyond the grave was turning its head to watch me. I went up one of the staircases, and when I reached the entrance to the gallery, I stopped to look behind me. The distant city lights were just visible in the rain.

I stepped into the gallery. In the centre stood a statue of a woman in prayer, embracing a crucifix. The face had been disfigured and someone had painted the eyes and lips black, giving her a wolfish aspect. That was not the only sign of desecration in the vault. The tombstones seemed to be covered in what looked like markings or scratches made with a sharp object, and some had been defaced with obscene drawings and words that were almost illegible in the failing light. Diego Marlasca’s tomb was at the far end. I went up to it and put my hand on the tombstone. Then I pulled out the photograph of Marlasca Salvador had given me and examined it.

At that moment I heard footsteps on the stairway to the vault. I put the photograph back into my coat pocket and turned, facing the entrance to the gallery. The footsteps stopped and all I could hear now was the rain beating against the marble. I went towards the entrance and looked out. The figure had its back to me and was gazing at the city in the distance. It was a woman dressed in white, her head covered by a shawl. Slowly she turned and looked at me. She was smiling. Despite the years, I recognised her instantly. Irene Sabino. I took a step towards her and only then did I realise there was someone else behind me. The blow to the back of my neck fired off a spasm of white light. I felt myself falling to my knees. A second later I collapsed on the flooded marble. A dark silhouette stood over me in the rain. Irene knelt down beside me; I felt her hands surrounding my head and feeling the place where I’d been hit. I saw her fingers emerging, covered in blood. She stroked my face. The last thing I saw before I lost consciousness was Irene Sabino pulling out a razor and opening it, silvery drops of rain sliding across the blade’s edge as it drew towards me.

I opened my eyes to the blinding glare of an oil lamp. The guard’s face was watching me impassively. I tried to blink as a flash of pain shot through my skull from the back of my neck.

‘Are you alive?’ the guard asked, without specifying whether the question was directed at me or was purely rhetorical.

‘Yes’, I groaned. ‘Don’t you dare stick me in a hole.’

The guard helped me to sit up. Every time I moved I felt a stab of pain in my head.

‘What happened?’

‘You tell me. I should have locked this place up over an hour ago, but as I hadn’t seen you leave, I came to investigate and found you sleeping it off.’

‘What about the woman?’

‘What woman?’

‘There were two.’

‘Two women?’

I sighed, shaking my head.

‘Can you help me get up?’

With the guard’s assistance I managed to stand. It was then that I felt a burning sensation and noticed that my shirt was open. There were a number of superficial cuts running in lines across my chest.

‘Hey, that doesn’t look good…’

I closed my coat and felt the inside pocket. Marlasca’s photograph had disappeared.

‘Do you have a telephone in the booth?’

‘Sure, it’s in the room with the Turkish baths.’

‘Can you at least help me reach Bellesguard, so that I can call from there?’

The guard swore and held me by the armpits.

‘I did tell you to come back another day,’ he said, resigned.

35

A few minutes before midnight I finally reached the tower house. As soon as I opened the door I knew that Isabella had left. The echo of my footsteps down the corridor sounded different. I didn’t bother to turn on the light. I went further into the apartment and put my head round the door of what had been her room. Isabella had cleaned and tidied it. The sheets and blankets were neatly folded on a chair and the mattress was bare. Her smell still floated in the air. I went to the gallery and sat at the desk my assistant had used. She had sharpened the pencils and arranged them in a glass. The pile of blank sheets had been carefully stacked in a tray and the pen and nib set I had given her had been left on one side of the table. The house had never seemed so empty.

In the bathroom I removed my wet clothes and put a bandage with surgical spirit on the nape of my neck. The pain had subsided to a mute throb and a general feeling that was not unlike a monumental hangover. In the mirror, the cuts on my chest looked like lines drawn with a pen. They were clean, superficial cuts, but they stung a great deal. I cleaned them with surgical spirit and hoped they wouldn’t become infected.

I got into bed and covered myself up to the neck with two or three blankets. The only parts of my body that didn’t hurt were those that the cold and the rain had numbed to the point that I couldn’t feel them at all. I lay there slowly warming up, listening to that cold silence, a silence of absence and emptiness that smothered the house. Before leaving, Isabella had left the pile of Cristina’s letters on the bedside table. I stretched out my hand and took one at random, dated two weeks earlier.

Dear David,

The days go by and I keep on writing letters to you which I suppose you prefer not to answer – if you even open them, that is. I’ve started to think that I write them just for myself, to kill the loneliness and to believe for a moment that you’re close to me. Every day I wonder what has happened to you, and what you’re doing.

Sometimes I think you’ve left Barcelona, and won’t return, and I imagine you in some place surrounded by strangers, beginning a new life that I will never know. At other times I think you still hate me, that you destroy these letters and wish you had never known me. I don’t blame you. It’s curious how easy it is to tell a piece of paper what you don’t dare say to someone’s face.

Things are not simple for me. Pedro couldn’t be kinder and more understanding, so much so that sometimes his patience and his desire to make me happy irritate me, which only makes me feel miserable. He has shown me that my heart is empty, that I don’t deserve to be loved by anyone. He spends most of the day with me and doesn’t want to leave me alone.

I smile every day and I share his bed. When he asks me whether I love him I say I do, and when I see the truth reflected in his eyes I feel like dying. He never reproaches me. He talks about you a great deal. He misses you. He misses you so much that sometimes I think you’re the person he loves most in this world. I see him growing old, on his own, in the worst possible company – mine. I don’t expect you to forgive me, but if there’s one thing I wish for in this world, it is for you to forgive him. I’m not worth depriving him of your friendship and company.

Yesterday I finished one of your books. Pedro has them all and I’ve been reading them because it’s the only way I can feel that I’m with you. It was a sad, strange story, about two broken dolls abandoned in a travelling circus that come alive for one night, knowing they are going to die at dawn. As I read it I felt you were writing about us.

A few weeks ago I dreamed that I saw you again: we passed in the street and you didn’t remember me. You smiled and asked me what my name was. You didn’t know anything about me. You didn’t hate me. Every night when Pedro falls asleep next to me, I close my eyes and beg heaven or hell that I might dream the same dream again.

Tomorrow, or perhaps the next day, I’ll write again to tell you that I love you, even if it means nothing to you.

CRISTINA

I let the letter fall to the floor, unable to read any more. Tomorrow would be another day, I told myself. It could hardly be worse than this one. Little did I imagine the delights in store. I must have slept for a couple of hours at the most when, all of a sudden, I awoke. It was still long before dawn. Somebody was banging on the door of my apartment. I spent a couple of seconds in a daze, looking for the light switch. Again, the knocking on the door. I must have forgotten to lock the main entrance to the street. I turned on the light, got out of bed and walked along to the entrance hall. I slid open the spyhole. Three faces in the shadows of the landing. Inspector Grandes and, behind him, Marcos and Castelo. All three with their eyes trained on the spyhole. I took two deep breaths before opening.

‘Good evening, Martín. I’m sorry about the time.’

‘And what time is this supposed to be?’

‘Time to move your arse, you son-of-a-bitch,’ muttered Marcos, which drew from Castelo a smile so cutting I could have shaved with it.

Grandes looked at them disapprovingly and sighed.

‘A little after three in the morning,’ he said. ‘May I come in?’

I groaned but let him in. The inspector signalled to his men to wait on the landing. Marcos and Castelo agreed reluctantly, throwing me reptilian looks. I slammed the door in their faces.

‘You should be more careful with those two,’ said Grandes, wandering up the corridor as if he owned the place.

‘Please, make yourself at home…’ I said.

I returned to the bedroom and dressed any old how, putting on the first things I found – dirty clothes piled on a chair. When I came out, there was no sign of Grandes in the corridor.

I went over to the gallery and found him there, gazing through the windows at the low clouds that crept over the flat roofs.

‘Where’s the sweetheart?’

‘In her own home.’

Grandes turned round, smiling.

‘Wise man, you don’t keep them full board,’ he said, pointing at the armchair. ‘Sit down.’

I slumped into the chair. Grandes remained standing, his eyes fixed on me.

‘What?’ I finally asked.

‘You don’t look so good, Martín. Did you get into a fight?’

‘I fell.’

‘I see. I understand that today you visited the magic shop owned by Señor Damián Roures in Calle Princesa.’

‘You saw me coming out of the shop at lunchtime. What’s all this about?’

Grandes was gazing at me coldly.

‘Fetch a coat and a scarf, or whatever. It’s cold outside. We’re off to the police station.’

‘What for?’

‘Do as I say.’

A car from police headquarters was waiting for us in Paseo del Borne. Marcos and Castelo pushed me unceremoniously into the back, posting themselves on either side.

‘Is the gentleman comfortable?’ asked Castelo, digging his elbow into my ribs.

The inspector sat in the front, next to the driver. None of them opened their mouths during the five minutes it took to drive up Vía Layetana, deserted and buried in an ochre mist. When we reached the central police station, Grandes got out and went in without waiting. Marcos and Castelo took an arm each, as if they were trying to crush my bones, and dragged me through a maze of stairs, passages and cells until we reached a room with no windows that smelled of sweat and urine. In the centre stood a worm-eaten table and two dilapidated chairs. A naked bulb hung from the ceiling and there was a grating over a drain in the middle of the room, where the two inclines of the floor met. It was bitterly cold. Before I realised what was happening, the door was shut behind me with a bang. I heard footsteps moving away. I walked round that dungeon a dozen times until I collapsed on one of the shaky chairs. For the next hour, apart from my breathing, the creaking of the chair and the echo of water dripping, I didn’t hear another sound.

An eternity later I heard footsteps approaching and shortly afterwards the door opened. Marcos stuck his head round and peered into the cell with a smile. He held the door open for Grandes, who came in without looking at me and sat on the chair on the other side of the table. Grandes nodded to Marcos and the latter closed the door, but not without first blowing me a silent kiss. The inspector took a good thirty seconds before deigning to look me in the eye.

‘If you were trying to impress me, you’ve done so, inspector.’

He ignored my irony and fixed his eyes on me as if he’d never seen me before in his life.

‘What do you know about Damián Roures?’ he asked.

I shrugged my shoulders.

‘Not much. He owns a magic shop. In fact, I knew nothing about him until a few days ago, when Ricardo Salvador mentioned him. Today, or yesterday – I’ve lost track of the time – I went to see him in search of information about the previous occupier of the house in which I live. Salvador told me that Roures and the owner-’

‘Marlasca.’

‘Yes, Diego Marlasca. As I was saying, Salvador told me that Roures had had dealings with him some years ago. I asked Roures a few questions and he replied as best he could. There’s little else.’

Grandes inclined his head.

‘Is that your story?’

‘I don’t know. What’s yours? Let’s compare and perhaps I’ll finally understand what the hell I’m doing here in the middle of the night, freezing to death in a basement that smells of shit.’

‘Don’t raise your voice to me, Martín.’

‘I’m sorry, inspector, but I think you could at least have the courtesy to tell me why I’m here.’

‘I’ll tell you why you’re here. About three hours ago, one of the residents of the apartment block in which Señor Roures’s shop is located was returning home late when he found that the door of the shop was open and the lights were on. He was surprised, so he went in, and when he did not see the owner or hear him reply to his calls, he went into the back room, where he found Roures, his hands and feet bound with wire to a chair, over a pool of blood.’

Grandes paused, his eyes boring into me. I imagined there was more to come. Grandes always liked to end on something dramatic.

‘Dead?’ I asked.

Grandes nodded.

‘Quite dead. Someone had amused himself by pulling out the man’s eyes and cutting out his tongue with a pair of scissors. The pathologist believes he died by choking on his own blood about half an hour later.’

I felt I needed air. Grandes was walking around. He stopped behind my back and I heard him light a cigarette.

‘How did you get that bruise? It looks recent.’

‘I slipped in the rain and hit the back of my neck.’

‘Don’t treat me like an idiot, Martín. It’s not advisable. Would you rather I left you for a while with Marcos and Castelo, to see if they can teach you some manners?’

‘All right. Someone hit me.’

‘Who?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘This conversation is beginning to bore me, Martín.’

‘Well, just imagine what it’s doing to me.’

Grandes sat down in front of me again and offered a conciliatory smile.

‘Surely you don’t believe I had anything to do with the death of that man?’

‘No, Martín. I don’t. What I do believe is that you’re not telling me the truth, and that somehow the death of that poor wretch is related to your visit. Like the death of Barrido and Escobillas.’

‘What makes you think that?’

‘Call it a hunch.’

‘I’ve already told you I don’t know anything.’

‘And I’ve already warned you not to take me for an idiot, Martín. Marcos and Castelo are out there waiting for an opportunity to have a private conversation with you. Is that what you want?’

‘No.’

‘Then help me get you out of this so that I can send you home before your sheets get cold.’

‘What do you want to hear?’

‘The truth, for example.’

I pushed the chair back and stood up, exasperated. I was chilled to the bone and my head felt as if it was going to burst. I began to walk round the table in circles, spitting out the words as if they were stones.

‘The truth? I’ll tell you the truth. The truth is I don’t know what the truth is. I don’t know what to tell you. I don’t know why I went to see Roures, or Salvador. I don’t know what I’m looking for or what is happening to me. That’s the truth.’

Grandes watched me stoically.

‘Stop walking in circles and sit down. You’re making me giddy.’

‘I don’t want to.’

‘Martín, you’re not telling me anything. All I’m asking you to do is to help me so that I can help you.’

‘You wouldn’t be able to help me even if you wanted to.’

‘Then who can?’

I dropped back into the chair.

‘I don’t know…’ I murmured.

I thought I saw a hint of pity, or perhaps it was just tiredness, in the inspector’s eyes.

‘Look, Martín. Let’s begin again. Let’s do it your way. Tell me a story, and start at the beginning.’

I stared at him in silence.

‘Martín. Don’t think that because I like you I’m not going to do my work.’

‘Do whatever you have to do. Call Hansel and Gretel, if you like.’

At that moment I noticed a touch of anxiety on his face. Footsteps were advancing along the corridor and something told me the inspector wasn’t expecting them. I heard voices and nervously Grandes went up to the door. He tapped three times with his knuckles and Marcos, who was on guard, opened up. A man dressed in a camel-hair coat and a matching suit came into the room, looked around him in disgust, and then gave me a sweet smile while he calmly removed his gloves. I watched him in astonishment. It was Valera, the lawyer.

‘Are you all right, Señor Martín?’ he asked.

I nodded. The lawyer led the inspector over to a corner. I heard them whispering. Grandes gesticulated with suppressed fury. Valera watched him coldly and shook his head. The conversation went on for almost a minute. Finally Grandes huffed and let his hands fall to his sides.

‘Pick up your scarf, Señor Martín. We’re leaving,’ Valera ordered. ‘The inspector has finished his questioning.’

Behind him, Grandes bit his lip, looking daggers at Marcos, who shrugged his shoulders. Without losing his expert smile, Valera took me by the arm and led me out of the dungeon.

‘I trust that the treatment you received from these police officers has been correct, Señor Martín.’

‘Yes,’ I managed to stammer.

‘Just a moment,’ Grandes called out behind us.

Valera stopped and, motioning for me to be quiet, he turned round.

‘If you have any more questions for Señor Martín you can direct them to our office and we will be glad to help you. In the meantime, and unless you have a more important reason for keeping Señor Martín on the premises, we shall retire. We wish you a good evening and thank you for your kindness, which I will certainly mention to your superiors, especially to Chief-Inspector Salgado, who, as you know, is a dear friend.’

Sergeant Marcos started to move towards us, but Inspector Grandes stopped him. I exchanged a last glance with him before Valera took me by the arm again and pulled me away.

‘Don’t wait about,’ he whispered.

We walked down the dimly lit passage until we came to a staircase that took us up to another long corridor. At the end of the second corridor a small door opened onto the ground-floor entrance hall and the main exit, where a chauffeur-driven Mercedes-Benz was waiting for us with its engine running. As soon as he saw Valera, the chauffeur jumped out and opened the door for us. I sat down on the back seat. The car was equipped with heating and the leather seats were warm. Valera sat next to me and, with a tap on the glass that separated the back from the driver’s compartment, instructed the chauffeur to set off. Once the car was en route and had settled in the central lane of Vía Layetana, Valera smiled at me as if nothing had happened. He pointed at the mist that parted like undergrowth as we drove through it.

‘A disagreeable night, isn’t it?’ he said casually.

‘Where are we going?’

‘To your home, of course. Unless you’d rather go to a hotel or-’

‘No. That’s fine.’

The car was rolling along down Vía Layetana. Valera gazed at the deserted streets with little interest.

‘What are you doing?’ I finally asked.

‘What do you think I’m doing? Representing you and looking after your interests.’

‘Tell the driver to stop the car,’ I said.

The chauffeur looked at Valera’s eyes in the mirror. Valera shook his head and gestured to him to continue.

‘Don’t talk nonsense, Señor Martín. It’s late, it’s cold and I’m taking you home.’

‘I’d rather walk.’

‘Be reasonable.’

‘Who sent you?’

Valera sighed and rubbed his eyes.

‘You have good friends, Señor Martín. It is important in life to have good friends and especially to know how to keep them,’ he said. ‘As important as knowing when one is stubbornly following the wrong path.’

‘Might that path be the one that goes past Casa Marlasca, number 13, Carretera de Vallvidrera?’

Valera smiled patiently, as if he were scolding an unruly child.

‘Señor Martín, believe me when I say that the further away you stay from that house and that business, the better for you. Do accept at least this piece of advice.’

When he reached Paseo de Colón, the chauffeur turned and drove up to Calle Comercio and from there to the entrance of Paseo del Borne. The carts with meat and fish, ice and spices were beginning to accumulate opposite the large marketplace. As we drove past, four boys were unloading the carcass of a calf, leaving a trail of blood that could be smelled in the air.

‘Your area is charming, full of picturesque scenes, Señor Martín.’

The driver stopped on the corner of Calle Flassaders and got out of the car to open the door for us. The lawyer got out with me.

‘I’ll come with you to the door,’ he said.

‘People will think we’re lovers.’

We entered the alleyway, a chasm of shadows, and headed towards my house. On reaching the front door, the lawyer offered me his hand with professional courtesy.

‘Thanks for getting me out of that place.’

‘Don’t thank me,’ replied Valera, pulling an envelope out of the inside pocket of his coat.

I recognised the wax seal with the angel even in the tenuous light that dripped from the street lamp above our heads. Valera handed me the envelope and, with a final nod, walked back to the waiting car. I opened my front door and went up the steps to the apartment. When I got in I went straight to the study and placed the envelope on the desk. I opened it and pulled out the folded sheet of paper with the boss’s writing.

Martín, dear friend,

I trust this note finds you in good health and good spirits. I happen to be passing through the city and would love the pleasure of your company this Friday at seven o’clock in the evening in the billiard room of the Equestrian Club, where we can talk about the progress of our project.

Until then, please accept my warm regards,

ANDREAS CORELLI

I folded the sheet of paper and put it carefully in the envelope. Then I lit a match and, holding the envelope by one corner, moved it closer to the flame. I watched it burn until the wax turned to scarlet tears that fell on the desk and my fingers were covered in ashes.

‘Go to hell,’ I whispered. The night, darker than ever, leaned in against the windowpanes.

36

Sitting in the armchair in the study, I waited for a dawn that did not come, until anger got the better of me and I went out into the street ready to defy Valera’s warning. A cold, biting wind was blowing, the sort that precedes dawn in wintertime. As I crossed Paseo del Borne I thought I heard footsteps behind me. I turned round for a moment but couldn’t see anyone except for the market boys unloading carts so I continued walking. When I reached Plaza Palacio I saw the lights of the first tram of the day waiting in the mist that crept up from the port. Snakes of blue light crackled along the overhead power cable. I stepped into the tram and sat at the front. The same conductor who’d been present on my last trip took the money for my ticket. A dozen or so passengers dribbled in, each one alone. After a few minutes the tram set off and we began our journey. Across the sky stretched a web of red capillaries between black clouds. There was no need to be a poet or a wise man to know that it was going to be a bad day.

By the time we reached Sarriá, dawn had broken with a grey, dull light that robbed the morning of any colour. I climbed the deserted, narrow streets of the district towards the lower slopes of the hillside. Occasionally I thought I again heard footsteps behind me, but each time I stopped and looked back there was nobody there. At last I reached the entrance to the passage leading to Casa Marlasca and made my way through a blanket of dead leaves that crunched underfoot. Slowly, I crossed the courtyard and walked up the stairs to the front door, peering through the large windows of the facade. I rapped with the knocker three times and moved back a few steps. I waited for a moment, but no answer came. I knocked again and heard the echoes fading away inside the house.

‘Good morning!’ I called out.

The grove surrounding the property seemed to absorb the sound of my voice. I went around the house, past the swimming pool area and then on to the conservatory. Its windows were darkened by closed wooden shutters which made it impossible to see inside, but one of the windows next to the glass door was slightly open. The bolt securing the door was just visible through the gap. I put my arm through the window and slid open the bolt. The door gave way with a metallic creak. I looked behind me once more, to make sure there was nobody there, and went in.

As my eyes adjusted to the gloom, I began to distinguish a few outlines. I went over to the windows and half-opened the shutters. A fan of light cut through the darkness, revealing the full profile of the room.

‘Is anyone here?’ I called out.

The sound of my voice sank into the bowels of the house like a coin falling into a bottomless well. I walked to the end of the conservatory, where an arch of carved wood led to a dim corridor lined with paintings that were barely visible on the velvet-covered walls. At the end of the corridor there was a large, round sitting room with mosaic floors and a mural of enamelled glass showing the figure of a white angel with one arm extended and fingers pointing like flames. A wide staircase rose in a spiral around the room. I stopped at the foot of the stairs and called out again.

‘Good morning! Señora Marlasca?’

The total silence of the house drowned the dull echo of my words. I went up the stairs to the first floor and paused on the landing, looking down on the sitting room and the mural. From there I could see the trail my feet had left on the film of dust covering the ground. Apart from my footsteps, the only other sign of movement I could discern was parallel lines drawn in the dust, about half a metre apart, and a trail of footprints between them. Large footprints. I stared at those marks in some confusion until I understood what I was seeing: the movement of a wheelchair and the marks of the person pushing it.

I thought I heard a noise behind my back and turned. A half-open door at one end of the corridor was gently swinging and I could feel a breath of cold air. I moved slowly towards the door, glancing at the rooms on either side, bedrooms with dust sheets covering the furniture. The closed windows and heavy darkness suggested these rooms had not been used in a long time, except for one, which was larger than the others, the master bedroom. It smelled of that odd mixture of perfume and illness associated with elderly people. I imagined this must be the room of Marlasca’s widow, but there was no sign of her.

The bed was neatly made. Opposite it stood a chest of drawers with a number of framed photographs on it. In all of them, without exception, was a boy with fair hair and a cheerful expression. Ismael Marlasca. In some pictures he posed next to his mother or other children. There was no sign of Diego Marlasca in any of them.

The sound of a door banging in the corridor startled me again and I exited the bedroom, leaving the pictures as I’d found them. The door to the room at the end was still swinging back and forth. I walked up to it and stopped for a second before entering, taking a deep breath.

Inside, everything was white. The walls and the ceiling were painted an immaculate white. White silk curtains. A small bed covered with white sheets. A white carpet. White shelves and cupboards. After the darkness that had prevailed throughout the house, the contrast dazzled my vision for a few seconds. The room seemed to be straight out of a fairy tale. There were toys and storybooks on the shelves. A life-size china harlequin sat at a dressing table, looking at himself in the mirror. A mobile of white birds hung from the ceiling. At first sight it looked like the room of a spoilt child, Ismael Marlasca, but it had the oppressive air of a funeral chamber.

I sat on the bed and sighed. Only then did I notice that something in the room seemed out of place. Beginning with the smell. A sickly, sweet stench floated in the air. I stood up and looked around me. On a chest of drawers I saw a china plate with a black candle, its wax melted into a cluster of tears. I turned round. The smell seemed to be coming from the head of the bed. I opened the drawer of the bedside table and found a crucifix broken in three. The stench grew stronger. I walked around the room a few times but was unable to find the source. Then I saw it. There was something under the bed. A tin box, the sort that children use to hold their childhood treasures. I pulled out the box and placed it on the bed. The stench was now more powerful, and penetrating. I ignored my nausea and opened the box. Inside was a white dove, its heart pierced by a needle. I took a step back, covering my mouth and nose, and retreated to the corridor. The harlequin with its jackal smile observed me in the mirror. I ran back to the staircase and hurtled down the stairs, looking for the passage that led to the reading room and the door to the garden. At one point I thought I was lost and the house, like a creature capable of moving its passageways and rooms at will, was trying to prevent me from escaping. At last I sighted the conservatory and ran to the door. Only then, while I was struggling to release the bolt, did I hear malicious laughter behind me and know I was not alone in the house. I turned for an instant and saw a dark figure watching me from the end of the corridor, carrying a shining object in its hand. A knife.

The bolt yielded and I pushed open the door, falling headlong onto the marble tiles surrounding the swimming pool. My face was barely centimetres away from the surface and I could smell the stench of stagnant water. For a moment I peered into the shadows at the bottom of the pool. There was a short break in the clouds and a shaft of sunlight pierced the water, touching the floor with its loose fragments of mosaic. The vision was over in a second: the wheelchair, tilted forward, stranded on the pool floor. The sunlight continued its journey to the deep end and it was there that I saw her: lying against the wall was what looked like a body shrouded in a threadbare white dress. At first I thought it was a doll, with scarlet lips shrivelled by the water and eyes as bright as sapphires. Her red hair undulated gently in the rancid water and her skin was blue. It was Marlasca’s widow. A second later the gap in the clouds closed again and the water was once more a clouded mirror in which I could glimpse only my face and a form that appeared in the doorway of the conservatory behind me, holding a knife. I shot up and ran straight into the garden, crossing the grove, scratching my face and hands on the bushes, until I reached the iron door and was out in the alleyway. I didn’t stop running until I reached the main road. There I turned, out of breath, and saw that Casa Marlasca was once again hidden down its long alleyway, invisible to the world.

37

I returned home on the same tram, crossing a city that was growing darker by the minute. An icy wind lifted the fallen leaves from the streets. When I got out in Plaza Palacio I heard two sailors, who were walking up from the docks, talking about a storm that was approaching from the sea and would hit the town before nightfall. I looked up and saw a blanket of reddish clouds beginning to cover the sky, spreading over the sea like blood. In the streets surrounding the Borne Market people were rushing to secure doors and windows, shopkeepers were closing early and children came outside to play in the wind, lifting their arms and laughing at the distant roar of thunder. Street lamps flickered and a flash of lightning bathed the buildings in a sudden white light. I hurried to the door of the tower house and rushed up the steps. The rumble of the storm could be felt through the walls, getting closer.

It was so cold indoors that I could see my breath as I stepped into the corridor. I went straight to the room with an old charcoal stove that I had used only four or five times since I’d lived there, and lit it with a wad of old newspapers. I also lit the wood fire in the gallery and sat on the floor facing the flames. My hands were shaking, I didn’t know whether from cold or fear. I waited until I had warmed up, staring out at the web of white light traced by lightning across the sky.

The rain didn’t arrive until nightfall, and when it did, it plummeted in curtains of furious drops that quickly blinded the night and flooded rooftops and alleyways, hitting walls and windowpanes with tremendous force. Little by little, with the help of the stove and the fireplace, the house started to warm up, but I was still cold. I got up and went to the bedroom in search of blankets to wrap around myself. I opened the wardrobe and started to rummage in the two large drawers at the bottom. The case was still there, hidden at the back. I picked it up and placed it on the bed.

I opened the case and stared at my father’s old revolver, the only thing I had left of him. I held it, stroking the trigger with my thumb. I opened the drum and inserted six bullets from the ammunition box in the false bottom of the case. I left the box on the bedside table and took the gun and a blanket back to the gallery. Lying on the sofa wrapped in the blanket, with the gun against my chest, I abandoned myself to the storm behind the windowpanes. I could hear the ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece but didn’t need to look at it to realise that there was barely half an hour to go before my meeting with the boss in the billiard room at the Equestrian Club.

I closed my eyes and imagined him travelling through the deserted streets of the city, sitting on the back seat of his car, his golden eyes shining in the dark, the silver angel on the hood of the Rolls-Royce plunging through the storm. I imagined him motionless, like a statue, not breathing or smiling, with no expression at all. I heard the crackle of burning wood and the sound of the rain on the windows; I fell asleep with the weapon in my hands and the certainty that I was not going to keep my appointment.

Shortly after midnight I opened my eyes. The fire was almost out and the gallery was submerged in the flickering half-light projected by the last blue flames in the embers. It continued to rain heavily. The revolver was still in my hands: it felt warm. I remained like that for a few seconds, barely blinking. I knew that there was someone at the door before I heard the knock.

I pushed aside the blanket and sat up. I heard the knock again. Knuckles on the front door. I stood up, holding the gun in my hands, and went into the corridor. Again the knock. I took a few steps towards the door and stopped. I imagined him smiling on the landing, the angel on his lapel gleaming in the dark. I pulled back the hammer on the gun. Once again the sound of a hand, knocking on the door. I tried to turn the light on, but there was no power. I kept walking. I was about to slide the spyhole open, but didn’t dare. I stood there stock-still, hardly daring to breathe, with the gun raised and pointing towards the door.

‘Go away,’ I called out, with no strength in my voice.

Then I heard a sob on the other side of the door, and lowered the gun. I opened the door and found her there in the shadows. Her clothes were soaking and she was shivering. Her skin was frozen. When she saw me, she almost collapsed into my arms. I could find no words; I just held her tight. She smiled weakly at me and when I put my hand on her cheek she kissed it and closed her eyes.

‘Forgive me,’ whispered Cristina.

She opened her eyes and gave me a broken look that would have stayed with me even in hell. I smiled at her.

‘Welcome home.’

38

I undressed her by candlelight. I removed her shoes and dress, which were soaking wet, and her laddered stockings. I dried her body and her hair with a clean towel. She was still shaking with cold when I put her to bed and lay down next to her, hugging her to give her warmth. We stayed like that for a long time, not saying anything, just listening to the rain. Slowly I felt her body warming up and her breathing become deeper. I thought she had fallen asleep but then I heard her speak.

‘Your friend came to see me.’

‘Isabella.’

‘She told me she’d hidden my letters. She said she hadn’t done it in bad faith. She thought she was doing it for your own good. Perhaps she was right.’

I leaned over and searched her eyes. I caressed her lips and for the first time she smiled weakly.

‘I thought you’d forgotten me,’ she said.

‘I tried.’

Her face was marked by tiredness. The months I had not seen her had drawn lines on her skin and her eyes had an air of defeat and emptiness.

‘We’re no longer young,’ she said, reading my thoughts.

‘When have we ever been young, you and I?’

I pulled away the blanket and looked at her naked body stretched out on the white sheet. I stroked her neck and her breasts, barely touching her skin with my fingertips. I drew circles on her belly and traced the outline of the bones of her hips. I let my fingers play with the almost transparent hair between her thighs.

Cristina watched me without saying a word, her smile sad and her eyes half open.

‘What are we going to do?’ she asked.

I bent over her and kissed her lips. She embraced me and we remained like that as the light from the candle sputtered then went out.

‘We’ll think of something,’ she whispered.

I woke up shortly after dawn and discovered I was alone in the bed. I sat up suddenly, fearing that Cristina had left again in the middle of the night. Then I saw her clothes and shoes on the chair and let out a deep sigh. I found her in the gallery, wrapped in a blanket, sitting on the floor by the fireplace, where a breath of blue fire emerged from a smouldering log. I sat down next to her and kissed her on the neck.

‘I couldn’t sleep,’ she said, her eyes fixed on the fire.

‘You should have woken me.’

‘I didn’t dare. You looked as if you were sleeping for the first time in months. I preferred to explore your house.’

‘And?’

‘This house is cursed with sadness,’ she said. ‘Why don’t you set fire to it?’

‘And where would we live?’

‘In the plural?’

‘Why not?’

‘I thought you’d stopped writing fairy tales.’

‘It’s like riding a bike. Once you learn…’

Cristina looked at me.

‘What’s in that room at the end of the corridor?’

‘Nothing. Junk.’

‘It’s locked.’

‘Do you want to see it?’

She shook her head.

‘It’s only a house, Cristina. A pile of stones and memories. That’s all.’

Cristina nodded but looked unconvinced.

‘Why don’t we go away?’ she asked.

‘Where to?’

‘Far away.’

I couldn’t help smiling, but she didn’t smile back.

‘How far?’ I asked.

‘Far enough that people won’t know who we are, and won’t care either.’

‘Is that what you want?’ I asked.

‘Don’t you?’

I hesitated for a second.

‘What about Pedro?’ I asked, almost choking on the words.

She let the blanket fall from her shoulders and looked at me defiantly. ‘Do you need his permission to sleep with me?’

I bit my tongue.

Cristina looked at me, her eyes full of tears.

‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered. ‘I had no right to say that.’

I picked up the blanket and tried to cover her, but she moved away, rejecting my gesture.

‘Pedro has left me,’ she said in a broken voice. ‘He went to the Ritz yesterday to wait until I’d gone. He said he knew I didn’t love him, that I married him out of gratitude or pity. He said he doesn’t want my compassion and that every day I spend with him pretending to love him only hurts him. Whatever I did he would always love me, he said, and that is why he doesn’t want to see me again.’

Her hands were shaking.

‘He’s loved me with all his heart and all I’ve done is make him miserable,’ she murmured.

She closed her eyes and her face twisted in pain. A moment later she let out a deep moan and began to hit her face and body with her fists. I threw myself on her and put my arms around her, holding her still. Cristina struggled and shouted. I pressed her against the floor, restraining her. Slowly she gave in, exhausted, her face covered in tears, her eyes reddened. We remained like that for almost half an hour, until I felt her body relaxing and she fell into a long silence. I covered her with the blanket and embraced her, hiding my own tears.

‘We’ll go far away,’ I whispered in her ear, not knowing whether she could hear or understand me. ‘We’ll go far away where nobody will know who we are, and won’t care either. I promise.’

Cristina tilted her head and looked at me, her face robbed of all expression, as if her soul had been smashed to pieces with a hammer. I held her tight and kissed her on the forehead. The rain was still whipping against the windowpanes. Trapped in that grey, pale light of a dead dawn, it occurred to me for the first time that we were sinking.

39

That same morning I abandoned my work for the boss. While Cristina slept I went up to the study and put the folder containing all the pages, notes and drafts for the project in an old trunk by the wall. My first impulse had been to set fire to it, but I didn’t have the courage. I had always felt that the pages I left behind were a part of me. Normal people bring children into the world; we novelists bring books. We are condemned to put our whole lives into them, even though they hardly ever thank us for it. We are condemned to die in their pages and sometimes even to let our books be the ones who, in the end, will take our lives. Among all the strange creatures made of paper and ink that I’d brought into the world, this one, my mercenary offering to the promises of the boss, was undoubtedly the most grotesque. There was nothing in those pages that deserved anything better than to be burned, and yet they were still flesh of my flesh and I couldn’t find the courage to destroy them. I abandoned the work in the bottom of that trunk and left the study with a heavy heart, almost ashamed of my cowardice and the murky sense of paternity inspired in me by that manuscript of shadows. The boss would probably have appreciated the irony of the situation. All it inspired in me was disgust.

Cristina slept well into the afternoon. I took advantage of her sleep to go over to the grocer’s shop next to the market and buy some milk, bread and cheese. The rain had stopped at last, but the streets were full of puddles and you could feel the dampness in the air, like a cold dust that permeated your clothes and your bones. While I waited for my turn in the shop I had the feeling that someone was watching me. When I went outside again and crossed Paseo del Borne, I turned and saw that a boy was following me. He could not have been more than five years old. I stopped and looked at him. The boy held my gaze.

‘Don’t be afraid,’ I said. ‘Come here.’

The boy came closer, until he was standing about two metres away. His skin was pale, almost blue, as if he’d never seen the sunlight. He was dressed in black and wore new, shiny, patent leather shoes. His eyes were dark, with pupils so large they left no space for the whites.

‘What’s your name?’ I asked.

The boy smiled and pointed at me with his finger. I was about to take a step towards him but he ran off, disappearing into Paseo del Borne.

When I got back to my front door I found an envelope stuck in it. The red wax seal with the angel was still warm. I looked up and down the street, but couldn’t see anybody. I went in and double-locked the main door behind me. Then I paused at the foot of the staircase and opened the envelope.

Dear friend,

I deeply regret that you were unable to come to our meeting last night. I trust you are well and there has been no emergency or setback. I am sorry I couldn’t enjoy the pleasure of your company, but I hope that whatever it was that did not allow you to join me is quickly and favourably resolved and that next time it will be easier for us to meet. I must leave the city for a few days, but as soon as I return I’ll send word. Hoping to hear from you and to learn about your progress in our joint project, please accept, as always, my friendship and affection,

ANDREAS CORELLI

I crushed the letter in my fist and put it in my pocket, then went quietly into the apartment and closed the door. I peeked into the bedroom and saw that Cristina was still asleep. Then I went to the kitchen and began to prepare coffee and a light lunch. A few minutes later I heard Cristina’s footsteps behind me. She was looking at me from the doorway, clad in an old jumper of mine that went halfway down her thighs. Her hair was a mess and her eyes were still swollen. Her lips and cheeks had dark bruises, as if I’d hit her hard. She avoided my eyes.

‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered.

‘Are you hungry?’ I asked.

She shook her head, but I ignored the gesture and motioned for her to sit at the table. I poured her a cup of coffee with milk and sugar and gave her a slice of freshly baked bread with some cheese and a little ham. She made no move to touch her plate.

‘Just a bite,’ I suggested.

She nibbled the cheese and gave me a smile.

‘It’s good,’ she said.

We ate in silence. To my surprise, Cristina finished off half the food on her plate. Then she hid behind the cup of coffee and gave me a fleeting look.

‘If you want, I’ll leave today,’ she said at last. ‘Don’t worry. Pedro gave me money and-’

‘I don’t want you to go anywhere. I don’t want you to go away ever again. Do you hear me?’

‘I’m not good company, David.’

‘That makes two of us.’

‘Did you mean it? What you said about going far away?’

I nodded.

‘My father used to say that life doesn’t give second chances.’

‘Only to those who never had a first chance. Actually, they’re second-hand chances that someone else hasn’t made use of, but that’s better than nothing.’

She smiled faintly.

‘Take me for a walk,’ she suddenly said.

‘Where do you want to go?’

‘I want to say goodbye to Barcelona.’

40

Halfway through the afternoon the sun appeared from behind the blanket of clouds left by the storm. The shining streets were transformed into mirrors, on which pedestrians walked, reflecting the amber of the sky. I remember that we went to the foot of the Ramblas where the statue of Columbus peered out through the mist. We walked without saying a word, gazing at the buildings and the crowds as if they were a mirage, as if the city were already deserted and forgotten. Barcelona had never seemed so beautiful and so sad to me as it did that afternoon. When it began to grow dark we walked to the Sempere & Sons bookshop and stood in a doorway on the opposite side of the street, where nobody could see us. The shop window of the old bookshop cast a faint light over the damp, gleaming cobblestones. Inside we could see Isabella standing on a ladder, sorting out the books on the top shelf, as Sempere’s son pretended to be going through an accounts book, looking furtively at her ankles all the while. Sitting in a corner, old and tired, Señor Sempere watched them both with a sad smile.

‘This is the place where I’ve found almost all the good things in my life,’ I said without thinking. ‘I don’t want to say goodbye.’

When we returned to the tower house it was already dark. As we walked in we were greeted by the warmth of the fire which I had left burning when we went out. Cristina went ahead down the corridor and, without saying a word, began to get undressed, leaving a trail of clothes on the floor. I found her lying on the bed, waiting. I lay down beside her and let her guide my hands. As I caressed her I could feel her muscles going tense. There was no tenderness in her eyes, just a longing for warmth, and an urgency. I abandoned myself to her body, charging at her with anger, feeling her nails dig into my skin. I heard her moan with pain and with life, as if she lacked air. At last we collapsed, exhausted and covered in sweat. Cristina leaned her head on my shoulder and looked into my eyes.

‘Your friend told me you’d got yourself into trouble.’

‘Isabella?’

‘She’s very worried about you.’

‘Isabella has a tendency to believe she’s my mother.’

‘I don’t think that’s what she was getting at.’

I avoided her eyes.

‘She told me you were working on a new book, commissioned by a foreign publisher. She calls him the boss. She says he’s paying you a fortune but you feel guilty for having accepted the money. She says you’re afraid of this man, the boss, and there’s something murky about the whole business.’

I sighed with annoyance.

‘Is there anything Isabella hasn’t told you?’

‘The rest is between us,’ she answered, winking at me. ‘Was she lying?’

‘She wasn’t lying, she was speculating.’

‘And what’s the book about?’

‘It’s a story for children.’

‘Isabella told me you’d say that.’

‘If Isabella has already given you all the answers, why are you questioning me?’

Cristina looked at me severely.

‘For your peace of mine, and Isabella’s, I’ve abandoned the book. C’est fini,’ I assured her.

Cristina frowned and looked dubious.

‘And this man, the boss, does he know?’

‘I haven’t spoken to him yet. But I suppose he has a good idea. And if he doesn’t, he soon will.’

‘So you’ll have to give him back the money?’

‘I don’t think he’s bothered about the money in the least.’

Cristina fell into a long silence.

‘May I read it?’ she asked at last.

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘It’s a draft and it doesn’t make any sense yet. It’s a pile of ideas and notes, loose fragments. Nothing readable. It would bore you.’

‘I’d still like to read it.’

‘Why?’

‘Because you’ve written it. Pedro always says that the only way you can truly get to know an author is through the trail of ink he leaves behind him; the person you think you see is only an empty character: truth is always hidden in fiction.’

‘He must have read that on a postcard.’

‘In fact he took it from one of your books. I know because I’ve read it too.’

‘Plagiarism doesn’t prevent it being nonsense.’

‘I think it makes sense.’

‘Then it must be true.’

‘May I read it then?’

‘No.’

That evening, sitting opposite one another at the kitchen table, looking up occasionally, we ate the remains of the bread and cheese. Cristina had little appetite, and examined every morsel of bread in the light of the oil lamp before putting it in her mouth.

‘There’s a train leaving the Estación de Francia for Paris tomorrow at midday,’ she said. ‘Is that too soon?’

I couldn’t get the image of Andreas Corelli out of my mind: I imagined him coming up the stairs and calling at my door at any moment.

‘I suppose not,’ I agreed.

‘I know a little hotel opposite the Luxembourg Gardens where they rent out rooms by the month. It’s a bit expensive, but…’ she added.

I preferred not to ask her how she knew of the hotel.

‘The price doesn’t matter, but I don’t speak French.’

‘I do.’

I looked down.

‘Look at me, David.’

I raised my eyes reluctantly.

‘If you’d rather I left…’

I shook my head. She held my hand and brought it to her lips.

‘It’ll be fine. You’ll see,’ she said. ‘I know. It will be the first thing in my life that will work out all right.’

I looked at her, a broken woman with tears in her eyes, and didn’t wish for anything in the world other than the ability to give her back what she’d never had.

We lay down on the sofa in the gallery under a couple of blankets, staring at the embers in the fireplace. I fell asleep stroking Cristina’s hair, thinking it was the last night I would spend in that house, the prison in which I had buried my youth. I dreamed that I was running through the streets of a Barcelona strewn with clocks whose hands were turning backwards. Alleyways and avenues twisted as I ran, as if they had a will of their own, creating a living labyrinth that blocked me at every turn. Finally, under a midday sun that burned in the sky like a red-hot metal sphere, I managed to reach the Estación de Francia and was speeding towards the platform where the train was beginning to pull away. I ran after it but the train gathered speed and, despite all my efforts, all I managed to do was touch it with the tips of my fingers. I kept on running until I was out of breath, and when I reached the end of the platform fell into a void. When I glanced up it was too late. The train was disappearing into the distance, Cristina’s face staring back at me from the last window.

I opened my eyes and knew that Cristina was not there. The fire was reduced to a handful of ashes. I stood up and looked through the windows. Dawn was breaking. I pressed my face against the glass and noticed a flickering light shining from the windows of the study. I went to the spiral staircase that led up the tower. A copper-coloured glow spilled down over the steps. I climbed them slowly. When I reached the study I stopped in the doorway. Cristina was sitting on the floor with her back to me. The trunk by the wall was open. Cristina was holding the folder containing the boss’s manuscript and was untying the ribbon.

When she heard my footsteps she stopped.

‘What are you doing up here?’ I asked, trying to hide the note of alarm in my voice.

Cristina turned and smiled.

‘Nosing around.’

She followed the direction of my gaze to the folder in her hands and adopted a mischievous expression.

‘What’s in here?’

‘Nothing. Notes. Comments. Nothing of any interest…’

‘You liar. I bet this is the book you’ve been working on,’ she said.

‘I’m dying to read it…’

‘I’d rather you didn’t,’ I said in the most relaxed tone I could muster.

Cristina frowned. I took advantage of the moment to kneel down beside her and delicately snatch the folder away.

‘What’s the matter, David?’

‘Nothing’s the matter,’ I assured her with a stupid smile plastered across my lips.

I tied the ribbon again and put the folder back in the trunk.

‘Aren’t you going to lock it?’ asked Cristina.

I turned round, ready to offer some excuse, but Cristina had already disappeared down the stairs. I sighed and closed the lid of the trunk.

I found her in the bedroom. For a moment she looked at me as if I were a stranger.

‘Forgive me,’ I began.

‘You don’t have to ask me to forgive you,’ she replied. ‘I shouldn’t have stuck my nose in where I have no business.’

‘No, it’s not that.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said icily, her tone cutting the air.

I put off a second remark for a more auspicious moment.

‘The ticket office at the Estación de Francia will be open soon,’ I said. ‘I thought I’d go along so that I can buy the tickets first thing. Then I’ll go to the bank and withdraw some money.’

‘Very good.’

‘Why don’t you get a bag ready in the meantime? I’ll be back in a couple of hours at the most.’

Cristina barely smiled.

‘I’ll be here.’

I went over to her and held her face in my hands.

‘By tomorrow night we’ll be in Paris,’ I said.

I kissed her on the forehead and left.

41

The large clock suspended from the ceiling of the Estación de Francia was reflected in the shining surface of the vestibule beneath my feet. The hands pointed to seven thirty-five in the morning, but the ticket offices hadn’t opened yet. A porter, armed with a large broom and an exaggerated manner, was polishing the floor, whistling a popular folk song and, within the limits imposed by his limp, jauntily moving his hips. As I had nothing better to do, I stood there observing him. He was a small man who looked as if the world had wrinkled him up to such a degree that it had taken everything from him except his smile and the pleasure of being able to clean that bit of floor as if it were the Sistine Chapel. There was nobody else around, but finally he realised that he was being watched. When his fifth pass over the floor brought him to my observation post on one of the wooden benches surrounding the hall, the porter stopped and leaned on his mop with both hands.

‘They never open on time,’ he explained, pointing towards the ticket offices.

‘Then why do they have a notice saying they open at seven?’

The little man sighed philosophically.

‘Well, they also have train timetables and in the fifteen years I’ve been here I haven’t seen a single one leave on time,’ he remarked.

The porter continued with his cleaning and fifteen minutes later I heard the window of the ticket office opening. I walked over and smiled at the clerk.

‘I thought you opened at seven,’ I said.

‘That’s what the notice says. What do you want?’

‘Two first-class tickets to Paris on the midday train.’

‘For today?’

‘If that’s not too much trouble.’

It took him almost a quarter of an hour. Once he had finished his masterpiece, he dropped the tickets on the counter disdainfully.

‘One o’clock. Platform Four. Don’t be late.’

I paid and, as I didn’t then leave, he gave me a hostile look.

‘Anything else?’

I smiled and shook my head, at which point he closed the window in my face. I turned and crossed the immaculate vestibule, its brilliant shine courtesy of the porter, who waved at me from afar and wished me a bon voyage.

The central offices of the Banco Hispano Colonial on Calle Fontanella were reminiscent of a temple. A huge portico gave way to a nave, which was flanked by statues and extended as far as a row of windows that looked like an altar. On either side of this altar, like side-chapels and confessionals, were oak tables and easy chairs fit for a general, with a small army of auditors and other staff in attendance, neatly dressed and sporting friendly smiles. I withdrew four thousand francs and received instructions on how to take out money at their Paris branch, at the intersection of Rue de Rennes with Boulevard Raspail, near the hotel Cristina had mentioned. With that small fortune in my pocket I said goodbye, disregarding the warning given to me by the manager about the risks of walking the streets with that amount of cash in my pocket.

The sun was rising in a blue sky the colour of good luck, and a clean breeze brought with it the smell of the sea. I was walking briskly as if relieved of a tremendous burden, and I began to think that the city had decided to let me go without any ill feeling. In Paseo del Borne I stopped to buy flowers for Cristina, white roses tied with a red ribbon. I climbed the steps to the apartment, two at a time, with a smile on my lips, bearing the certainty that this would be the first day of a life I thought I had lost forever. I was about to open the door when, as I put the key in the lock, it gave way. It was open.

I stepped into the hall. The house was silent.

‘Cristina?’

I left the flowers on a shelf and put my head round the door of the bedroom. Cristina wasn’t there. I walked up the corridor to the gallery. There was no sign of her. I went to the staircase that led up to the study and called out in a loud voice.

‘Cristina?’

Nothing but an echo. I checked the clock on one of the glass cabinets in the gallery. It was almost nine. I imagined that Cristina must have gone out to get something and, being used to leaving such matters as doors and keys to the servants in Pedralbes, she had left the front door open. While I waited, I decided to lie down on the sofa in the gallery. The sun poured in through the large windows: a clean, bright winter sun that felt like a warm caress. I closed my eyes and tried to think about what I was going to take with me. I’d spent half my life surrounded by all these objects, and now, when it was time to part from them, I felt incapable of making a shortlist of the ones I considered essential. Slowly, without noticing, lying under the warmth of the sun and lulled by tepid hope, I fell asleep.

When I woke up and looked at the clock, it was twelve thirty. There was barely half an hour left before the train was due to leave. I jumped up and ran to the bedroom.

‘Cristina?’

This time I went through the whole house, room by room, until I reached the study. There was nobody, but I thought I could smell something odd. Phosphorus. The light from the windows trapped a faint web of blue filaments of smoke suspended in the air. I found a couple of burned matches on the study floor. I felt a pang of anxiety and knelt down by the trunk. I opened it and sighed with relief. The folder containing the manuscript was still there. I was about to close the lid when I noticed something: the red ribbon of the folder was undone. I picked it up and opened it, leafing through the pages, but nothing seemed to be missing. I closed it again, this time tying the ribbon with a double knot, and put it back in its place. After closing the trunk, I went down to the lower floor. I sat on a chair in the gallery, facing the long corridor that led to the front door, and waited. The minutes went by with infinite cruelty.

Slowly, the awareness of what had happened fell upon me, and my desire to believe and to trust turned to bitterness. I heard the bells of Santa María strike two o’clock. The train to Paris had left the station and Cristina had not returned. I realised then that she had gone, that those brief hours we had shared were nothing but a mirage. I went up to the study again and sat down. The dazzling day I saw through the windowpanes was no longer the colour of luck; I imagined her back in Villa Helius, seeking the shelter of Pedro Vidal’s arms. Resentment slowly poisoned my blood and I laughed at myself and my absurd hopes. I remained there, incapable of taking a single step, watching the city grow dark as the afternoon went by and the shadows lengthened. Finally I stood up and went over to the window, opened it wide and looked out. Beneath me a sheer drop, sufficiently high. Sufficiently high to crush my bones, to turn them into daggers that would pierce my body and let it die in a pool of blood on the courtyard below. I wondered whether the pain would be as bad as I imagined it, or whether the impact would be enough to numb the senses and offer a quick, efficient death.

Then I heard three knocks on the door. One, two, three. Insistent. I turned, still dazed by my thoughts. The call came again. There was someone knocking on the door. My heart skipped a beat and I rushed downstairs, convinced that Cristina had returned, that something had happened along the way that had detained her, that my miserable, despicable feelings of betrayal were unjustified and that today was, after all, the first day of that promised life. I ran to the door and opened it. She was there in the shadows, dressed in white. I was about to embrace her, but then I saw her face, wet with tears. It was not Cristina.

‘David,’ Isabella whispered in a broken voice. ‘Señor Sempere has died.’