The Antiquarian (11 page)

The entries had not been made on a daily basis. He only took down his impressions in cases of apparently common, or especially significant, events: a daughter's illness, problems on the site … There were also references to the archbishop, visits of papal emissaries, and resistance and quality tests for several types of quarry rock, among other things. As the text went on, it gradually abandoned any professional musings to focus on the fate of his family, and the Black Death that devastated Barcelona in 1393.

On page sixty, for the first time, and coinciding with the appearance of a mysterious character identified only as S., Enrique came across the side notes.

Enrique's translation suddenly became more difficult, not because there was more to translate, but because of how cryptic much of the original was. The side notes, written in Old Catalan, had him racking his brain more than once, because some of the brief comments were simply bizarre. He got little if anything from them, and he decided to turn to the Latin text, even it was rendered confusing and fragmented by his deficient translation. In any case, it seemed obvious to him that the notes were closely related to the presence of S., as they could be found on any page where S. was mentioned.

In the attempt to simplify his work, Enrique began a draft list of pages with a summary of the notes. If he did not understand them, he transcribed them literally; unfortunately, most completely baffled him.

At last, skipping forward, on page ninety-four Enrique came across the first reference to “the object.” The architect had written that the meeting—he used the term
gahal
, the Hebrew word from which
Call
was derived—would be held at Ángel Martín's house in the old Call, Barcelona's Jewish Quarter, where they would show it for the first time. Enrique felt a rush of excitement, sure that he had come upon the first reference to Artur's enigmatic discovery. Next, for reasons unexplained by the text, a major disappointment had occurred: something had gone wrong, since nothing had been shown at the gathering. As Casadevall had understood it, it might have been done out of caution, a test to check the master builder's trustworthiness. His next entries spoke of the incredible effect that the existence of “it” had had on him, but without any mention of what in the world “it” really was. The side notes continued as before, rife with abbreviations and contractions, but they were also full of question marks and exclamation points that hadn't appeared until then.

The deeper he went into the manuscript, the more confused Enrique felt. The text explained nothing but the odd relationship between the architect Casadevall and the mysterious S., and the Jews of Barcelona's Call, which in itself was intriguing, as the social prominence of a master builder would have made it unthinkable for him to associate with anyone outside his circle of ecclesiastic obligations, let alone people of other religions. It would not be long until the Catholic Monarchs expelled the Jews from Spain in 1492, but even by then the Christian majority could hardly stand their presence, and they were certainly frowned upon by the nobles and clergy who had become deeply indebted to Jewish financiers. In the case of Barcelona, the Jews were
officially driven out of the Call in 1424. All of Spain had witnessed the pogroms against the Jews in 1391, and Barcelona had been one of the cities where they were most ardently persecuted. Therefore, the social status of the Jewish community was that of an isolated, barely tolerated, and even officiously persecuted minority. And so, how could it be understood that a person of standing in those days had such close contact with Jews of the Call, even if they wore the guise of converts, the so-called
conversos
? Even they were social outcasts, called
marranos
—swine—and looked down on by public opinion as untrustworthy traitors to their faith.

The confusion that the complex text was generating in Enrique's imaginative mind was of such magnitude that he became lost in abstraction, letting the hours pass and forgetting the obligations made in and to the real world. The sudden ring of the telephone snapped him back to reality. He knew who it was even before he picked up the receiver.

“Enrique?”

“Yes, Bety.” Submerged in the hidden world of the manuscript, he had forgotten the promise he had made on leaving San Sebastián.

“Sometimes I think you're a real son of a bitch.” Her pleasant tone could not hide a true loathing that gave her words the cutting effect of a brand-new scalpel. “You promised you'd call, and you didn't. I read about the funeral in the paper. Oh, and because I called Fornells. Some guy named Rodríguez confirmed the ceremony was yesterday.”

The word given and not upheld, the value of the commitment accepted and violated: this was where Bety's condemnation lay. Enrique struggled to free himself from a conversation that, despite the good intentions that now governed Bety's acts, did
not appeal to him in the least, even if the reason was different from what she may have imagined.

“I'm sorry Bety, I truly am. You have no idea what shape I'm in. I didn't forget. I just feel like I'm living in a haze, that all of this is bigger than me. Time just slips away without me realizing it. Plus, I haven't felt like talking to anyone.” He listened to himself lie, although he knew the lie would be discovered, just like they always used to be. “Artur's not here anymore.” He kept up the deception, having decided that once begun, he would see it through to the end.

“Well, if you don't feel well … ,” Bety granted.

“Being at home without him just feels so strange,” Enrique continued. “I'm still not accustomed to him not being here, and the truth is, it's really hard on me.”

“I see,” said Bety, believing more in the reasons than Enrique's honesty.

Enrique had no desire to keep talking. He thought it was the perfect time to end the conversation. But he also knew that if he did, his curtness would only fan the flames of Bety's curiosity. In the end, it was Bety who decided to steer the conversation away from personal matters.

“What have you heard about the investigation? Rodríguez said he wasn't at liberty to tell me anything, but that you knew how it was going.”

Enrique outlined the possibilities that Fornells had been over with him, without going into his own opinions. Going that far would only make Bety worry, and worry was the last thing he wanted to convey to her. But somehow, his ex-wife seemed to pick up, with that peculiar instinct honed over their years of living together, that he was hiding something.

“So what do you think?” she asked.

“I have no idea,” he lied again, tossing himself into the abyss of ever-expanding perjury. “I don't care who did it. I just want them caught as soon as possible.”

Following another silence, talk turned to the inheritance. Bety was surprised to learn that Artur had included her, even if only to give her what could be considered a gift, though not exactly a small one. She had always felt drawn to an old book dated 1544, a Latin compilation of several works of Aristophanes, who Bety considered one of the great Greek comic playwrights. Artur was aware of her fondness for the book, and had decided to leave it to her to remember him by. The gesture moved her to tears that the distance could not hide. She told Enrique to keep her posted and hung up.

Enrique thought about going back to the translation, but his mood had changed. He wanted to do it as much as he wished he had not fibbed his way through the conversation with Bety. He felt confused and angry with himself, prisoner of a lie he wished he had not told, no matter how necessary. It was always the same; he always pushed her away when she could have helped him the most. He could never share the recesses of his inner world, perhaps because he himself found them surprising and excessive, even knowing that it only added to the distance between them.

A second call came in. He wondered whether to answer; he didn't feel up to it, but the possibility of it being Fornells with news on the case spurred him to pick up.

“Hello?”

“Enrique?” inquired a peculiar baritone that stirred a vague memory in his mind.

“Speaking.”

“Good morning. This is Guillem Cardús. I don't know if you remember me, but I'm in the antiques business, a good friend of your father's. Artur introduced us about four years ago, in his shop, one day when you were passing through Barcelona. We also saw each other the day before yesterday at Samuel's.”

“Yes, I remember. You were in the cemetery yesterday. Thanks for coming.”

“Artur was a good friend and colleague, in that order. Missing the funeral would have been an inexcusable discourtesy and a breach of loyalty.”

“I appreciate it.” The politeness of his words could not cover the stiffness of his voice.

Now this was a conversation he could have really done without, and he was willing to let it show. He let silence work for him; any initiative would have to be taken by the person on the other end of the line. To his surprise, Guillem had intentions that immediately sparked his interest, although in an unexpected way.

“I'm calling, though I must admit it's not the best time, about a business matter.”

“I'm listening,” answered Enrique, surprised to be talking business at what anyone, except a genuine Catalan entrepreneur, would consider a completely inappropriate time.

“Listen, Enric Torner, another colleague who, as you may already know, was also a good friend of Artur's, and I thought that you probably won't want to pursue your father's line of business. If so, we'd be looking to purchase the entire contents of his shop and even the shop itself. There's no way we could come up with what we'd consider a reasonable amount independently, so we've decided to set up a partnership, should you accept our figure. We're willing to make a good offer, an offer that will be hard for anyone to match. That would allow us to carry on with Artur's work philosophy, which we both share.”

“I see,” Enrique hid his budding surprise. “Look, Guillem, to be perfectly honest, I still haven't decided what I'm going to do with the business. I'll make a decision in a few days, and when I do, I'll call you. I assume your number's in Artur's phone book.”

“Yes, it's in there for sure. I'd appreciate that. And pardon me for bothering you, but I'd like to ask you one last thing before I hang up.”

“Go ahead.”

“Has anyone else made an offer on Artur's shop?”

“Yes, Samuel Horowitz made the same proposal just yesterday. Why?”

“Old Samuel. Uh-huh. I should've seen that one coming. Okay, it's always good to know who you're up against. I look forward to hearing from you. Thanks for everything,” he added quickly before hanging up.

“Don't mention it,” said Enrique, too late, to no one. He had hardly hung up the phone when alarms began sounding in his head. In just twenty-four hours, the last three people that Artur had spoken to before he died had offered to buy the shop as well as its contents. Had the circumstances lacked the logical order they now seemed to take on, this could have been considered natural, but unfortunately, it was only getting more conspicuous. Something was going on right under his nose, and he had not realized it until speaking to Guillem. The manuscript belonged to the lot sold by the Bergués family, and that meant that it had come into Artur's hands a few days prior to his death. Just as Fornells had said, his three antiquarian colleagues were the last people in his circle to see Artur alive, save for the owner of the Bar del Pi and the parking attendants who he had barely spoken to. Was it plausible that one of them had found out how important the manuscript was and, under the cover of the weekend, murdered him to steal the book and eliminate a possible competitor? Or maybe they only meant to steal the book and were surprised by Artur.

It all seemed to fit. One of the three antiques dealers could be the killer, but which one? He would have to rule out Samuel. After all, how could a man kill his best friend of twenty years? No, it couldn't have been Samuel. And if he was off the list of suspects, only two names were left: Guillem and Enric, who had already made their first
move. He would have to find the way to unmask the killer, tell the police, and ask if they wanted him to find out what they were after.

Tell the police … What was he thinking? In seconds, he had gone from considering Fornells's theory ridiculous to thinking about telling it all to him. Of course, if he did that he would never be able to discover the mystery hidden in the manuscript, or at least not exclusively, but he could not withhold information from the police that might help them solve the case. And anyway, wasn't it a little absurd to consider Guillem and Enric suspects? Two antiquarians and good friends of his father's, despite the generation gap, about whom Artur had only the nicest things to say in his letters, and even in person and in front of Guillem, as had occurred four years earlier?

It couldn't be. It would be best to forget about it all for a while and focus on the translation. Once he finished it would be time to rethink the whole affair. And so, like so many times before, Enrique drove dark thoughts from his head by simply burying it in the sand. He switched off his cell phone, disconnected the line in Artur's living room, and went back to work.

Two days later, he had a fairly clear idea of what had transpired in the early fifteenth century which, to his surprise, was merely an extension of previous events. The manuscript allowed Enrique to infer that the architect had been but a small piece in the overall workings of the story, which dated back to a distant past.

The manuscript made it clear that Casadevall had contacted a group of Jewish converts. Although the Jews had publicly repudiated their religion, in private they kept up their precepts and principles. Rabbis, as the only valid interpreters of the law, were the figures of greatest relevance among their people. S. had a notable moral aura about him, leading Enrique to deduce he was the group's spiritual leader. His being named in the manuscript by his initial could have been a simple measure of caution: it would be
better if no one could connect the initial with a specific person, and for this to be possible, all specific mentions of him in a written document were to be avoided.