The Antiquarian (32 page)

Comforted by these meditations, Enrique got out of the car. He felt strong enough—though just barely—to give Bety the explanations she was bound to demand. He opened the door. A light was on in the kitchen, and he made his way toward it. An eccentrically dressed man emerged suddenly from the kitchen. Enrique, taken aback by the abrupt appearance, backed up to the wall behind him, gripped by a harrowing thought: it was Artur's killer. They looked at one another. The visitor, carrying a glass of juice in his right hand, observed him with a curious and somewhat patronizing look before extending his hand.

“Hello. You must be Alonso, the writer.”

Bety took the awkward moment to make her appearance in the entry hall. She took charge of the situation. Enrique remained with his back against the wall, distant from the stranger.

“Who is this guy?”

“I think you've frightened Enrique,” observed Bety, who could hardly suppress a smile. “Manolo, meet Enrique Alonso, my ex-husband. Enrique, this is Manolo Álvarez, a philologist from the University of Barcelona who's helping with the Casadevall translation.”

Still wary, Enrique extended his hand. Manolo gripped it firmly, if somewhat reluctantly. Manolo's sweat-damp hand reminded the host of being fleetingly touched by a fish. Bety, who was getting to know her new collaborator, understood exactly what the gesture meant: he was yielding to social convention for purely practical reasons. Keeping to what was established as correct, though he did not believe in it, meant savings in time and explanations.

“Sorry about before.” Enrique justified himself. “I was surprised to see you like that in my house.”

“Oh, don't worry about it. I assume that anyone who saw me pop out of a doorway in their house would be startled to death.”

Enrique looked at the stranger, taking him in. He couldn't understand what such a character was doing in his house.

“Excuse me,” he said to Manolo, “I'd like to talk to Bety alone for a minute.”

“Of course! I'll wait out on the terrace.”

Enrique looked at Bety and pointed to the kitchen door, and they went in. Thinking ahead, Bety closed the door. She knew her ex-husband well.

“Would you mind telling me what that guy is doing in my house?”

“When you told me that Artur's murderer had been arrested this morning, I decided to consult an expert in Catalan philology on the translation of the side notes. I couldn't figure them out without help from a specialist. A contact of mine in the department of Romance languages put me in touch with Manolo, the best translator I've ever met.”

“Translator? He's a translator?”

“Correction: he's not just the best translator, he is the most brilliant philologist I've ever seen.”

“Now all that's missing is for you to say he's a linguistic wizard and throw yourself at his feet to worship him,” Enrique crowed with sarcasm.

“He is a linguistic wizard and I do throw myself at his feet for that and other reasons you'll soon understand. I promise you that there is no one better-prepared than him in all of Spain. He has one of those rare privileged minds for languages that only comes along once every hundred years. He's like a modern-day Burton or Von Humboldt,” Bety explained patiently.

Enrique looked like he could lose his temper any minute.

“I couldn't care less how competent he is! Just four days ago you were all over me for making a unilateral decision, and now you greet me with this! I can't believe it!” Enrique paced around the kitchen as he always did when his mood was sour. “How could you have possibly considered telling the story of the manuscript to a stranger without checking with me first? Jesus Christ! I just cannot believe it!”

“Shut your mouth and listen, you fool!” Bety ordered. “I finished the translation, but could find nothing whatsoever to tell me where ‘it' was. The last chance we had was the side notes, and only an expert could have been reliable to—”

“That gives you no right to—”

“Shut up already!”

Enrique looked at her, utterly perplexed. Never, not even the worst of their time together, had Bety raised her voice that way. She even ignored the fact that Manolo was there, and he was bound to have heard. Panting, maybe surprised at her own reaction, Bety leveled an index finger at him.

“Would you mind telling me what you're up to? Could you tell me why you're so bent on keeping a secret when it no longer makes any sense? All I'm trying to do is
resolve what you and I can't do on our own! Or has the memory of Artur made you incompetent?”

Without moving, Enrique clenched his fists. His countenance made Bety back up, spooked by the aggressiveness in his look. Like any time they argued, the final volley was deadly if Bety fired it.

“That hurt, bad. You don't know how much, you can't even imagine. You shouldn't have said that.” His rage had passed; in its place only disappointment remained.

“I'm sorry, I didn't mean to say it.”

“I'm sure. But in San Sebastián, when you came to my house to tell me about Artur's death, something like this happened, remember? And you were right. In the end, you always say what you think, even if it hurts the other person. Look, just forget it. Now tell me whatever story you have.”

He showed no more emotion. Enrique's apparent calm could not fool Bety, who was contrite. It would be best to let time heal the wound, and change the subject to Manolo's conclusions.

“It's too strange a story; I'd rather he tell it.”

“Fine. But first tell me what he knows.”

“Strictly things related to the manuscript.”

“Good, then let's go hear him out.”

Manolo was waiting for them on the terrace.

“Have you finished your business?”

“Yes, we're done with our ‘business.' Let's go to the study. We can talk in there.”

“Okay.”

Once they were comfortably settled into three cozy armchairs, Manolo retold the story he had regaled Bety with earlier that day. Like her, Enrique took some time to comprehend that Manolo could know the existence of the manuscript without having had real contact with it until that day. Skeptical by nature, even more so in light of the uncomfortable situation he found himself in—his secret disclosed, seated in front of an erudite dressed like a bum, Artur's inner sanctum violated, laid low by Bety's surprise attack—he put up every possible resistance and then some to this story of Manolo's, who was long on detail and chose his words carefully.

“I'm having a hard time believing all this,” Enrique said when Manolo had finished. “Why would a master builder enter the dangerous game of hiding an object like the Stone of God? The contact between Jews and Christians was limited to business activities. Christian society had stripped itself of the atmosphere of relative coexistence that had prevailed between the two religions until the end of the twelfth century. Why couldn't they hide it themselves?”

“As for your first question, Bety's translation, which I consider to be excellent, offers some insight. She told me that you skimmed through the pages of the manuscript, that you focused on the key part of the enigma. But that's all explained in the first part. Casadevall owed them a favor, and hiding the Stone was part of the payment. And as for them hiding it, well no, they couldn't. One can only imagine that the social persecution they suffered after the pogroms of 1391 meant that they wouldn't be free to do so. They were confined to the Call, walled in at that time, and were not allowed to leave the city without permission. They were only allowed to travel east, but if they chose to go into exile, they were required to leave behind any valuables they had.”

“That was probably decisive when it came to contacting Casadevall,” Bety added. “They thought it would be impossible to hide the Stone, so they had to hide it in a place that was absolutely safe.”

“His daughter fell ill, and that made it possible to contact Casadevall. His position had allowed Casadevall to travel around Europe, and he had been acquainted with many Jewish artisans, experts in a number of architecture-related arts, especially glasswork. The Jews were looked on much more kindly in other countries than in Spain. They had suffered only a handful of xenophobic attacks, and enjoyed relative freedom. This must have expanded Casadevall's outlook on the Jewish people, in such a way that associating with them did not seem strange to him.”

“That's hard to believe,” Enrique insisted.

“The information we have is conclusive, although my part of it can't be proven immediately,” Manolo answered patiently. “You can't go to Toledo and study the archives just like that. You need time and certain academic influences. You could probably get them; you're a writer of recognized standing and responsibility. But it would take you days, even weeks, to do the paperwork. Until then, my word will have to suffice. The only proof I can offer is this.” He took out a small notebook with battered and worn covers. “It contains all the notes I've taken over years of research on things I thought could have to do with the Stone. It even has dates: I'm methodic like that. As for the manuscript, Bety has the complete translation; it's yours to read.”

Enrique leafed through the notebook. It was one of those with unruled sheets sold for the owner to fill them with whatever they wanted. Enrique knew a few writers who used them to condense the information necessary for their books, thus making them tiny reference works vital for avoiding mistakes.

“Keep it, if you want, and have a look. I won't need it. I always have a copy of all my important papers.”

Enrique nodded. “I will.”

“There can be no other conclusion,” Bety continued. “Casadevall discovered in the Stone of God an object he preferred to keep hidden forever. Or rather, they showed him that object with the intention of hiding it—it doesn't matter. And two hundred years later, Diego de Siurana had the luck to find a manuscript that concealed a mystery that must have seemed as fascinating to him as it does to us.”

“Terrible luck.”

“Okay.” Enrique finally gave in to Bety and Manolo's merciless tenacity. “I can accept that the whole thing is true, but what does that change? The truth is, we still don't know anything. What really matters is where he hid it. To me, it doesn't even matter what it is. We're not in an action movie, or at least, I don't think we are. It's more than likely that the Stone has already been lost over the passage of the years, decades, and centuries. Wherever it was originally is probably now the site of a bank, post office, or fast-food place.”

His rant helped him blow off steam. Without being fully aware of what he was saying, the words came to his mind on their own, laden with reason, or rather, tedium. While just one day earlier Enrique would have been capable of doing almost anything to unravel the manuscript mystery, Fornells's revelations completely modified his outlook on the subject. He had not been aware of it until the very moment he faced Bety and Manolo. They were bent on finding a resolution now untranscendental, lacking all meaning to him.

“It may not matter to you, but for me it's a puzzle from the past that I want to resolve,” Manolo said. “I think that Casadevall hid it in a special place that would
withstand the passage of time, and if we decipher it with the clues hidden in the manuscript, we'll be able to find it. And so—”

“And so it's a puzzle from the past, huh?” Enrique interrupted him. “You want to try to crack a mystery, maybe the greatest enigma in your life. Fine. But for me it's much more—or much less—than all that. Let me tell you what it is for me: it's the last memento from my dead father. I wanted to solve the enigma as a tribute to his memory, a final send-off, a farewell. It's taken me a while to realize it; he knew where to find it, and he figured it out exclusively thanks to his intelligence and experience. If I tried to follow his footsteps it was just to pay homage to his memory.”

“I have no idea what you're talking about,” Manolo answered, shocked.

“Remember that Manolo knows nothing about Artur,” Bety said in an attempt to put on the brakes.

But Enrique was too wound-up. The news about Artur had affected him too much.

“My father died a few days ago. He was working on the manuscript, and he thought he was close to the solution. He said so in a letter he sent a few hours before his death.”

Manolo looked at Bety with an indefinable look recriminating her for not disclosing this information. Now he understood Enrique's aggressiveness. He looked like the typical famous author, known for his serenity and stability, traits far from the barely-contained rage that sprang to the surface at the slightest opportunity.

“I'm sorry, really. I understand your attitude now. But you should listen to me: we're not enemies, nor do I mean to upset you. I haven't come to impinge on your memories, and I assure you that I fully comprehend your situation, better than lots of other acquaintances who may have given you their phony condolences. If digging into your past means disrupting your memories, I won't do it, no matter how curious I am. I live in my own world, so private that I haven't ever found anyone capable of sharing it.
I'm only interested in what I study; it keeps me entertained, and from time to time, it fascinates me, like this case.”

Bety was impressed at Manolo's perfectly measured diction, a quality kept hidden until now.

Enrique looked at him closely. His expression was blank. He either had no feelings whatsoever or the most absolute self-control. He spoke dispassionately, stripping his words of everything but their most essential meaning, their truest content. And he waited. More than anything else, he waited. Enrique could not put his finger on how Manolo conveyed it, as there was no indication, no eagerness, no anxiety, no desire, or even the slightest gesture. But he waited.

“I see,” said Enrique.