The Shadow of the Wind (51 page)

I set off toward Bea's house, incapable of waiting any longer. I needed to recall what little good there was in me, what she had given me. I rushed up the stairs and stopped outside the door of the Aguilars' apartment, almost out of breath. I held the door knocker and gave three loud knocks. While I waited, I gathered my courage and became aware of my appearance: soaked to the skin. I pushed the hair back from my forehead and told myself that the dice had been cast. If Senor Aguilar was ready to break my legs and smash my face, the sooner the better. I knocked again and after a while heard footsteps approaching. The peephole opened a fraction. A dark, suspicious eye stared at me.

'Who's there?'

I recognized the voice of Cecilia, one of the maids who worked for the Aguilar family.

'It's Daniel Sempere, Cecilia.'

The peephole closed, and within a few seconds I could hear the sound of the bolts and latches being drawn back. The large door opened slowly, and I was received by Cecilia in her cap and uniform, holding a candle in a candleholder. From her alarmed expression, I gathered that I must look like a ghost.

'Good afternoon, Cecilia. Is Bea in?'

She looked at me without understanding. In her experience of the household routine, my presence, which lately had been an unusual occurrence, was associated only with Tomas, my old school friend.

'Miss Beatriz isn't here. . . .'

'Has she gone out?'

Cecilia, who at the best of times was a frightened soul, nodded.

'Do you know when she's coming back?'

The maid shrugged. 'She went with Senor and Senora Aguilar to the doctor, about two hours ago.'

'To the doctor? Is she ill?'

'I don't know, sir.'

'And which doctor did they go to?'

'That I don't know, sir.'

I decided not to go on tormenting the poor maid. The absence of Bea's parents opened up other avenues. 'What about Tomas? Is he in?'

'Yes, Master Daniel. Come in, I'll call him.'

I went into the hall and waited. In the past I would have gone straight to my friend's room, but I hadn't been to that house for so long that I felt like a stranger. Cecilia disappeared down the corridor wrapped in an aura of light, abandoning me to the dark. I thought I could hear Tomas's voice in the distance and then some footsteps approaching. I quickly made up a pretext to explain my unannounced visit to my friend. But the figure that appeared at the door of the entrance hall was Cecilia's. She looked at me contritely, and my forced smile vanished.

'Master Tomas says he's very busy and cannot see you right now.'

'Did you tell him who I was? Daniel Sempere.'

'Yes, Master Daniel. He told me to tell you to go away.'

A stab of cold steel in my stomach took my breath away.

'I'm sorry, sir,' said Cecilia.

I nodded, not knowing what to say. The maid opened the door of the residence that, until not very long ago, I had considered my second home.

'Does the young master want an umbrella?'

'No thank you, Cecilia.'

'I'm, sorry, Master Daniel,' the maid repeated.

I smiled weakly. 'Don't worry, Cecilia.'

The door closed, leaving me in the shadows. I stayed there a few moments and then dragged myself down the stairs. The rain was still pouring down, relentlessly. I walked off down the street. When I reached the corner, I stopped and turned around for a moment. I looked up at the Aguilars' apartment. I could see the silhouette of my old friend Tomas outlined against his bedroom window. He was staring at me, motionless. I waved at him but he didn't return the greeting. A few seconds later, he moved away to the back of the room. I waited almost five minutes, hoping he would reappear, but he didn't.

42

On my way back to the bookshop, I crossed the street by the Capitol Cinema, where two painters standing on a scaffold watched with dismay as their freshly painted placard became streaked under the rain. In the distance I could make out the stoical figure of the sentinel stationed opposite the bookshop. When I got to Don Federico Flavia's shop, I noticed that the watchmaker was standing in the doorway watching the downpour. The scars from his stay at police headquarters still showed on his face. He wore an impeccable grey wool suit and held a cigarette that he hadn't bothered to light. I waved to him, and he smiled back.

'What have you got against umbrellas, Daniel?'

'What could be more beautiful than the rain, Don Federico?'

'Pneumonia. Come on in, I have your repair ready.'

I looked at him, not understanding. Don Federico's eyes were fixed on mine, and his smile hadn't diminished. I nodded and followed him into his marvellous bazaar. As soon as we were inside, he handed me a small brown paper bag.

'You'd better leave right away. The scarecrow watching the bookshop hasn't taken his eyes off us.'

I looked inside the bag. It contained a small, leather-bound book. A missal. The missal Fermin had held in his hands the last time I'd seen him. Don Federico, pushing me back towards the street, vowed me to silence with a solemn nod. Once I was outside again, he recovered his happy expression and raised his voice.

'And remember, don't force the key when you wind it up, or it'll come loose again, all right?'

'Don't worry, Don Federico, and thanks.'

I walked away with a knot in my stomach that tightened with every step I took. When I passed in front of the plainclothes policeman guarding the bookshop, I greeted him with the same hand that held the bag given to me by Don Federico. The policeman looked at it with vague interest. I slipped into the bookshop. My father was still standing behind the counter, as if he hadn't moved since I'd left. He gave me a troubled look.

'Listen Daniel, about what I said

'Don't worry. You were right.'

'You're trembling.'

I nodded casually and saw him go off in search of the Thermos. I seized the moment to go to the small toilet by the back room and examine the missal. Fermin's note slipped out, fluttering about like a butterfly. I caught it in mid-air. The message was written on an almost transparent piece of cigarette paper in minute writing, and I had to hold it up against the light to be able to decipher it.

Dear Daniel,

Don't believe one word of what the newspapers say about the murder of Nuria Monfort. As usual, it's nothing but a tall tale. I'm safe and sound, hiding in a secure place. Don't try to find me or send me messages. Destroy this note as soon as you've read it. No need to swallow it, just burn it or tear it up into small pieces. I'll use my wits to get in touch with you - and the help of friendly intermediaries. I beg you to transmit the essence of this message, in code and with all discretion, to my beloved. Don't you do anything. Your friend, the third man, FRdT

I was beginning to reread the note when someone's knuckles rapped on the toilet door.

'May I come in?' asked an unknown voice.

My heart skipped a beat. Not knowing what else to do, I scrunched up the cigarette paper and put it in my mouth. I pulled the chain, and while the water thundered through pipes and cisterns, I swallowed the little paper ball. It tasted of wax and Sugus sweets. When I opened the door, I encountered the reptilian smile of the police officer who had been stationed in front of the bookshop.

'Excuse me. I don't know whether it's listening to the rain all day, but suddenly it seems there's something of an emergency building down there, and when nature calls

'But of course,' I said, making way for him. 'It's all yours.'

'Much obliged.'

The policeman, who, in the light of the bare bulb, reminded me of a small weasel, looked me up and down. His rat like eyes paused on the missal I held in my hands.

'If I don't have something to read, I just can't go,' I explained.

'It's the same for me. And people say Spaniards don't read. May I borrow it?'

'On top of the cistern, you'll find the latest Critics' Prize,' I said, cutting him short. 'It's infallible.'

I walked away without losing my composure and joined my father, who was pouring me a cup of white coffee.

'What's he doing here?' I asked.

'He swore on his mother's grave that he was on the verge of wetting himself. What was I supposed to do?'

'Leave him in the street and let him warm up that way?'

My father frowned.

'If you don't mind, I'm going up to the apartment.'

'Of course I don't mind. And put on some dry clothes. You're going to catch your death.'

The apartment was cold and silent. I went into my bedroom and peeped out of the window. The second sentinel was still there, by the door of the Church of Santa Ana. I took off my soaking clothes and put on some thick pyjamas and a dressing gown that had belonged to my grandfather. I lay down on the bed without bothering to turn on the light and abandoned myself to the darkness and the sound of the rain on the windowpanes. I closed my eyes and tried to conjure up the image of Bea, her touch and smell. The night before I hadn't slept at all, and soon I was overcome by exhaustion. In my dreams the hooded figure of Death rode over Barcelona, a ghostly apparition that hovered above the towers and roofs, trailing black ropes that held hundreds of small white coffins. The coffins left behind them their own trail of black flowers, on whose petals, written in blood, was the name Nuria Monfort.

I awoke at the break of a grey dawn. The windows were steamed up. I dressed for the cold weather and put on some calf-length boots, then went out into the corridor and groped my way through the apartment. I slipped out through the door and went down to the street. The newsstands in the Ramblas were already lighting up in the distance. I steered a course towards the one that was anchored at the mouth of Calle Tallers and bought the first edition of the day's paper, which still smelled of warm ink. I rushed through the pages until I found the obituary section. Nuria Monfort's name lay under a printed cross, and I couldn't bring myself to look at it. I walked away with the newspaper folded under my arm. The funeral was that afternoon, in Montjuic Cemetery. After walking round the block, I returned home. My father was still asleep, so I went back into my room. I sat at my desk and took the Meisterstuck pen out of its case, then took a blank sheet of paper and hoped the nib would guide me. In my hands the pen had nothing to say. In vain I tried to conjure up the words I wanted to offer Nuria Monfort, but I was incapable of writing or feeling anything except the terror of her absence, of knowing she was lost, wrenched away. I knew that one day she would return to me, in the months or years to come, and that I would always relive her memory in the touch of a stranger, in the recollection of images that no longer belonged to me.

43

Shortly before three o'clock, I got on a bus in Paseo de Colon that would take me to the cemetery on Montjuic. Through the window I could see the forest of masts and fluttering pennants in the docks. The bus, which was almost empty, circled Montjuic mountain and started up the road to the eastern gates of the boundless cemetery. I was the last passenger to get off.

'What time does the last bus leave?' I asked the driver.

'At half past four.'

The driver left me by the cemetery gates. An avenue of cypress trees rose in the mist. Even from there, at the foot of the mountain, you could already begin to see the vast city of the dead that scaled the slope to the very top: avenues of tombs, walks lined with gravestones and alleyways of mausoleums, towers crowned by fiery angels and whole forests of sepulchres that seemed to grow into one another. The city of the dead was a vast abyss guarded by an army of rotting stone statues sinking into the mud. J took a deep breath and entered the labyrinth. My mother lay buried only a hundred yards from the path along which I walked. With every step I took, I could feel the cold, the emptiness, and the fury of that place; the horror of its silence, of the faces trapped in old photographs abandoned to the company of candles and dead flowers. After a while I caught the distant glimpse of gas lamps around a grave, the shapes of half a dozen people lined up against an ashen sky. I quickened my pace and stopped where I could hear the words of the priest.