The Shadow of the Wind (55 page)

That Sunday in 1919, when Miquel Moliner went to the station to give his friend Julian his ticket to Paris and see him off, he already knew that Penelope would not be coming to the rendezvous. Two days earlier, when Don Ricardo Aldaya returned from Madrid, his wife had confessed that she'd surprised Julian and their daughter Penelope in the governess's room. Jorge Aldaya had revealed all this to Miquel the day before, making him swear he would never tell anyone. Jorge explained how, when he was given the news, Don Ricardo exploded with anger and rushed up to Penelope's room, shouting like a madman. When she heard her father's cries, Penelope locked her door and wept with terror. Don Ricardo kicked in the door and found his daughter on her knees, trembling and begging for mercy. Don Ricardo then slapped her in the face so hard that she fell down. Not even Jorge was able to repeat the words Don Ricardo hurled at her in his fury. All the members of the family and the servants waited downstairs, terrified, not knowing what to do. Jorge hid in his room, in the dark, but even there he could hear Don Ricardo's shouts. Jacinta was dismissed that same day. Don Ricardo didn't even deign to see her. He ordered the servants to throw her out of the house and threatened them with a similar fate if any of them had any contact with her again.

When Don Ricardo went down to the library, it was already midnight. He'd left Penelope locked up in what had been Jacinta's bedroom and strictly forbade anyone, whether members of his staff or family, to go up to see her. From his room Jorge could hear his parents talking on the ground floor. The doctor arrived in the early hours. Senora Aldaya led him to the room where they kept Penelope under lock and key and waited by the door while the doctor examined her. When he came out, the doctor only nodded and collected his fee. Jorge heard Don Ricardo telling him that if he told anyone about what he'd seen there, he would personally ensure that his reputation was ruined and he would never be able to practise medicine again. Even Jorge knew what that meant.

Jorge admitted that he was very worried about Penelope and Julian. He had never seen his father so beside himself with rage. Even taking into account the offence committed by the lovers, he could not understand the extent of his anger. There must be something else, he said, something else. Don Ricardo had already ordered San Gabriel's school to expel Julian and had got in touch with the boy's father, the hatter, about sending him off to the army immediately. When Miquel heard all this, he decided he couldn't tell Julian the truth. If he disclosed to Julian that Don Ricardo was keeping Penelope locked up, and that she might be carrying his child, Julian would never take that train to Paris. He knew that if his friend remained in Barcelona, that would be the end of him. So he decided to deceive him and let him go to Paris without knowing what had happened; he would let him think that Penelope was going to join him sooner or later. When he said goodbye to Julian that day in the Estacion de Francia, even Miquel wanted to believe that not all was lost.

Some days later, when it was discovered that Julian had disappeared, all hell broke loose. Don Ricardo Aldaya was foaming at the mouth. He set half the police department in pursuit of the fugitive, but without success. He then accused the hatter of having sabotaged the plan they had agreed on and threatened to ruin him completely. The hatter, who couldn't understand what was going on, in turn accused his wife, Sophie, of having plotted the escape of that despicable son and threatened to throw her out of their home. It didn't occur to anyone that it was Miquel Moliner who had planned the whole thing - to anyone, that is, except Jorge Aldaya, who went to see him a fortnight later. He no longer exuded the fear and anxiety that had gripped him earlier. This was a different Jorge Aldaya, an adult robbed of all innocence. Whatever the secret that hid behind Don Ricardo's anger was, Jorge had found out. The reason for his visit was clear: he knew it was Miquel who had helped Julian escape. He told him their friendship was over, that he didn't ever want to see him again, and he threatened to kill him if he told anyone what he had revealed to him two weeks before.

A few weeks later, Miquel received a letter, with a false sender's name, posted by Julian in Paris. In it he gave him his address, told him he was well and missed him, and inquired after his mother and Penelope. He included a letter addressed to Penelope, which Miquel was to post from Barcelona, the first of many that Penelope would never read. Miquel prudently allowed a few months to go by. He wrote to Julian once a week, mentioning only what he felt was suitable, which was almost nothing. Julian, in turn, spoke to him about Paris, about how difficult everything was turning out to be, how lonely and desperate he felt. Miquel sent him money, books, and his friendship. In every letter Julian would include another one for Penelope. Miquel mailed them from different post offices, even though he knew it was useless. In his letters Julian never stopped asking after Penelope but Miquel couldn't tell him anything. He knew from Jacinta that Penelope had not left the house on Avenida del Tibidabo since her father had locked her in the room on the third floor.

One night Jorge Aldaya waylaid Miquel in the dark, two blocks from his home. 'Have you come to kill me then?' asked Miquel. Jorge said that he had come to do him and his friend Julian a favour. He handed him a letter and advised him to make sure it reached Julian, wherever he was hiding. 'For everyone's sake,' he declared portentously. The envelope contained a sheet of paper handwritten by Penelope Aldaya.

Dear Julian;

I'm writing to notify you of my forthcoming marriage and to entreat you not to write to me anymore, to forget me and rebuild your life. I don't bear you any grudge, but I wouldn't be honest if I didn't confess to you that I have never loved you and never will be able to love you. I wish you the best, wherever you may be.

Penelope

Miquel read and reread the letter a thousand times. The handwriting was unmistakable, but he didn't believe for a moment that Penelope had written that letter willingly: '. . . wherever you may be.' Penelope knew perfectly well where Julian was: in Paris, waiting for her. If she was pretending not to know his whereabouts, Miquel reflected, it was to protect him. But for that same reason, Miquel couldn't understand what could have induced her to write those words. What further threats could Don Ricardo Aldaya bring down on her, on top of keeping her locked up for months in that room like a prisoner? More than anyone, Penelope knew that her letter would be like a poisoned dagger to Julian's heart: a young boy of nineteen, lost in a distant and hostile city, abandoned by everyone, surviving only on his false hopes of seeing her again. What did she want to protect him from by pushing him from her in that way? After much consideration, Miquel decided not to send the letter. Not without knowing the reason for it first. Without a good reason, it would not be his hand that plunged that dagger into his friend's soul.

Some days later he found out that Don Ricardo Aldaya, tired of seeing Jacinta waiting like a sentry at the doors of his house, begging for news of Penelope, had used his contacts to get her admitted into the Horta lunatic asylum. When Miquel Moliner tried to see her, he was denied access. Jacinta Coronado was to spend the first three months in solitary confinement. After three months of silence and darkness, he was told by one of the doctors - a cheerful young individual - the patient's submission was guaranteed. Following a hunch, Miquel decided to pay a visit to the pension where Jacinta had been staying after her dismissal. When he identified himself, the landlady remembered that Jacinta had left a note for him and still owed her three weeks' rent. He paid the debt, even though he doubted its existence, and took the note. In it the governess explained how she had been informed that Laura, one of the Aldayas' servants, had been dismissed when it was discovered that she had secretly posted a letter from Penelope to Julian. Miquel deduced that the only address to which Penelope, from her captivity, could have sent the letter was Julian's parents' apartment in Ronda de San Antonio, hoping that they, in turn, would make sure it reached Julian in Paris.

Miquel decided to visit Sophie . Carax to recover the letter and forward it to Julian. When he arrived at the Fortunys' home, Miquel was in for an unpleasant surprise: Sophie Carax no longer lived there. She had abandoned her husband a few days earlier - or that, at least, was the rumour that was doing the rounds of the neighbours. Miquel then tried to speak to the hatter, who spent his days shut away in his shop, consumed by anger and humiliation. Miquel told him that he'd come to collect a letter that must have arrived for his son, Julian, a few days earlier.

'I have no son,' was the only answer he received.

Miquel Moliner went away without knowing that the letter in question had ended up in the hands of the caretaker and that, many years later, you, Daniel, would find it and read the words Penelope had meant for Julian, this time straight from her heart: words that he never received.

As Miquel left the Fortuny hat shop, one of the residents in the block of apartments, who identified herself as Vicenteta, approached him and asked him whether he was looking for Sophie. Miquel said he was and told her he was a friend of Julian's.

Vicenteta informed him that Sophie was staying in a boarding-house hidden in a small street behind the post office building, waiting for the departure of the boat that would take her to America. Miquel went to the address, where he found a narrow, miserable staircase almost devoid of light and air. At the top of the dusty spiral of sloping steps, he found Sophie Carax, in a damp, dark, room on the fourth floor. Julian's mother was facing the window, sitting on the edge of a makeshift bed on which two closed suitcases were lying like coffins, containing her twenty-two years in Barcelona.

When she read the letter signed by Penelope that Jorge Aldaya had given Miquel, Sophie shed tears of anger.

'She knows,' she murmured. 'Poor child, she knows. . . .'

'Knows what?' asked Miquel.

'It's my fault,' said Sophie. 'It's all my fault.'

Miquel held her hands, not understanding. Sophie didn't dare meet his eyes.

'Julian and Penelope are brother and sister,' she whispered.

3

Years before becoming Antoni Fortuny's slave, Sophie Carax had been a woman who made a living from her talents. She was only nineteen when she arrived in Barcelona in search of a promised job that never materialized. Before dying, her father had obtained the necessary references for her to go into the service of the Benarenses, a prosperous family of merchants from Alsace who had established themselves in Barcelona.

'When I die,' he urged her, 'go to them, and they'll treat you like a daughter.'

The warm welcome she received was part of the problem. Monsieur Benarens indeed received her with open arms - all too open, in the opinion of Madame Benarens. Madame Benarens gave Sophie one hundred pesetas and turned her out of the house, but not without showing some pity towards her and her bad fortune.

'You have your whole life ahead of you; but the only thing I have is this miserable, lewd husband.'

A music school in Calle. Diputacion agreed to give Sophie work as a private music and piano tutor. In those days it was considered respectable for girls of well-to-do families to be taught proper social graces with a smattering of music for the drawing room, where the polonaise was considered less dangerous than conversation or questionable literature. That is how Sophie Carax began her visits to palatial mansions, where starched, silent maids would lead her to the music rooms. There the hostile offspring of the industrial aristocracy would be waiting for her, to laugh at her accent, her shyness, or her lowly position - the fact that she could read music didn't alter that. Gradually Sophie learned to concentrate on the tiny number of pupils who rose above the status of perfumed vermin and forget the rest of them.

It was about that time that Sophie met a young hatter (for so he liked to be referred to, with professional pride) called Antoni Fortuny, who seemed determined to court her, whatever the cost. Antoni Fortuny, for whom Sophie felt a warm friendship and nothing else, did not take long to propose to her, an offer Sophie refused - and kept refusing, a dozen times a month. Every time they parted, Sophie hoped she wouldn't see him again, because she didn't want to hurt him. The hatter, brushing aside her refusals, stayed on the offensive, inviting her to dances, to take a stroll, or have a hot chocolate with sponge fingers on Calle Canuda. Being all alone in Barcelona, Sophie found it difficult to resist his enthusiasm, his company, and his devotion. She only had to look at Antoni Fortuny to know that she would never be able to love him. Not the way she dreamed she would love somebody one day. But she also found it hard to cast aside the image of herself that she saw reflected in the hatter's besotted eyes. Only in them did she see the Sophie she would have wished to be.

And so, either through need or through weakness, Sophie continued to entertain the hatter's advances, in the belief that one day he would meet a girl who would return his affection and his life would take a more rewarding course. In the meantime, being desired and appreciated was enough to alleviate the loneliness and the longing she felt for everything she had left behind. She saw Antoni on Sundays, after mass. The rest of the week was taken up by her music lessons. Her favourite pupil was a highly talented girl called Ana Valls, the daughter of a prosperous manufacturer of textile machinery who had built up his fortune from nothing, by dint of great effort and sacrifices, although mostly other people's. Ana expressed her desire to become a great composer and would make Sophie listen to small pieces she had composed, imitating motifs by Grieg and Schumann, and not without skill. Although Senor Valls was convinced that women were incapable of creating anything but knitted garments or crocheted bedspreads, he approved of his daughter becoming competent on the keyboard, for he had plans of marrying her off to some heir with a good surname. He knew that refined people liked to discover unusual qualities in a marriageable girl, besides submissiveness and the fecundity of youth.