Isaac gave a long sigh and lowered his eyes. “Heaven knows. I don’t know whether she really loved him. These things remain locked inside, and now she’s a married woman. When I was your age, I had a girlfriend, Teresita Boadas, her name was—she sewed aprons in the Santamaría textile factory, on Calle Comercio. She was sixteen, two years younger than me, and she was the first woman I ever fell for. Don’t look at me like that. I know you youngsters think we old people have never fallen in love. Teresita’s father had an ice cart in the Borne Market and had been born dumb. You can’t imagine how scared I was the day I asked him for his daughter’s hand and he spent five long minutes staring at me, without any apparent reaction, holding the ice pick in his hand. I’d been saving up for two years to buy Teresita a wedding ring when she fell ill. Something she’d caught in the workshop, she told me. Six months later she was dead of tuberculosis. I can still remember how the dumb man moaned the day we buried her in the Pueblo Nuevo cemetery.”
Isaac fell into a deep silence. I didn’t dare breathe. After a while he looked up and smiled.
“I’m speaking of fifty-five years ago, imagine! But if I must be frank, a day doesn’t go by without me thinking of her, of the walks we used to take as far as the ruins of the 1888 Universal Exhibition, or of how she would laugh at me when I read her the poems I wrote in the back room of my uncle Leopoldo’s grocery store. I even remember the face of a Gypsy woman who read our fortune on El Bogatell beach and told us we’d always be together. In her own way, she was right. What can I say? Well, yes, I think Nuria still remembers that man, even if she doesn’t say so. And the truth is, I’ll never forgive Carax for that. You’re still very young, but I know how much these things hurt. If you want my opinion, Carax was a robber of hearts, and he took my daughter’s to the grave or to hell. I’ll only ask you one thing: if you see her and talk to her, let me know how she is. Find out whether she’s happy. And whether she’s forgiven her father.”
SHORTLY BEFORE DAWN, WITH ONLY AN OIL LAMP TO LIGHT MY WAY, I went back into the Cemetery of Forgotten Books. As I did so, I imagined Isaac’s daughter wandering through the same dark and endless corridors with exactly the same determination as guided me that day: to save the book. I thought I remembered the route I’d followed the first time I visited that place with my father, but soon I realized that the folds of the labyrinth bent the passages into spirals that were impossible to recall. Three times I tried to follow a path I thought I had memorized, and three times the maze returned me to the same point. Isaac waited for me there, a wry smile on his face.
“Do you intend to come back for it one day?” he asked.
“Of course.”
“In that case you might like to cheat a little.”
“Cheat?”
“Young man, you’re a bit slow on the uptake, aren’t you? Remember the Minotaur.”
It took me a few seconds to understand what he was suggesting. Isaac pulled an old penknife out of his pocket and handed it to me.
“Make a mark on every corner, a notch only you will recognize. It’s old wood and so full of scratches and grooves that nobody will notice it, unless the person knows what he’s looking for….”
I followed his advice and once more penetrated the heart of the structure. Every time I changed direction, I stopped to mark the shelves with a C and an X on the side of the passage that I was intending to take. Twenty minutes later I had lost myself in the depths of the tower, and then, quite by chance, the place where I was going to bury the novel was revealed to me. To my right I noticed a row of volumes on the disentailment of church property penned by the distinguished Jovellanos. To my adolescent eyes, such a camouflage would have dissuaded even the craftiest mind. I took out a few tomes and inspected the second row that was concealed behind those walls of marble prose. Among little clouds of dust, various plays by Moratín and a brand-newCurial e Güelfa stood side by side with Spinoza’sTractatus Theologico-Politicus. As a coup de grâce, I resolved to confine the Carax book between the 1901 yearbook of judicial minutiae from the civil courts of Gerona and a collection of novels by Juan Valera. In order to make space, I decided to remove and take with me the book of Golden Age poetry that separated them, and in its place I slipped inThe Shadowof the Wind . I took my leave of the novel with a wink and put the Jovellanos anthology back in its place, walling in the back row.
Without further ado I left the place, finding my route by the marks I had made on the way in. As I walked in the dark through the tunnels and tunnels of books, I could not help being overcome by a sense of sadness. I couldn’t help thinking that if I, by pure chance, had found a whole universe in a single unknown book, buried in that endless necropolis, tens of thousands more would remain unexplored, forgotten forever. I felt myself surrounded by millions of abandoned pages, by worlds and souls without an owner sinking in an ocean of darkness, while the world that throbbed outside the library seemed to be losing its memory, day after day, unknowingly, feeling all the wiser the more it forgot.
DAWN WAS BREAKING WHEN I RETURNED TO THE APARTMENT ON CALLE Santa Ana. Opening the door quietly, I slipped in without switching on the light. From the entrance hall, I could see the dining room at the end of the corridor, the table still decked out for the party. The cake was there, untouched, and the dinner service still waited for the meal. I could make out the motionless silhouette of my father in the armchair, as he observed the scene from the window. He was awake and still wearing his best suit. Wreaths of smoke rose lazily from a cigarette he held between his index and ring fingers, as if it were a pen. I hadn’t seen my father smoke for years.
“Good morning,” he murmured, putting out the cigarette in an ashtray that was full of half-smoked butts.
I looked at him without knowing what to say. The light from behind him concealed his eyes.
“Clara phoned a few times last night, a couple of hours after you left,” he said. “She sounded very worried. She left a message for you to call her, no matter what time it was.”
“I don’t intend to see or speak to Clara again,” I said.
My father nodded but didn’t reply. I fell into one of the dining-room chairs and stared at the floor.
“Aren’t you going to tell me where you’ve been?”
“Just around.”
“You’ve given me one hell of a fright.”
There was no anger in his voice and hardly any reproach, just tiredness.
“I know. And I’m sorry,” I answered.
“What have you done to your face?”
“I slipped in the rain and fell.”
“That rain must have a good right hook. Put something on it.”
“It’s nothing. I don’t even notice it,” I lied. “What I need is to get some sleep. I can barely stand up.”
“At least open your present before you go to bed,” said my father.
He pointed to the packet wrapped in cellophane, which he had placed the night before on the coffee table. I hesitated for a moment. My father nodded. I took the packet and felt its weight. I handed it to my father without opening it.
“You’d better return it. I don’t deserve any presents.”
“Presents are made for the pleasure of who gives them, not for the merits of who receives them,” said my father. “Besides, it can’t be returned. Open it.”
I undid the carefully wrapped package in the dim light of dawn. It contained a shiny carved wooden box, edged with gold rivets. Even before opening it, I was smiling. The sound of the clasp when it unlocked was exquisite, like the ticking of a watch. Inside, the case was lined with dark blue velvet. Victor Hugo’s fabulous Montblanc Meinsterstück rested in the center. It was a dazzling sight. I took it and gazed at it by the light of the balcony. The gold clip of the pen top had an inscription.
DANIEL SEMPERE, 1950
I stared at my father, dumbfounded. I don’t think I had ever seen him look as happy as he seemed to me at that moment. Without saying anything, he got up from his armchair and held me
tight. I felt a lump in my throat and, lost for words, fell utterly silent.
True to Character
1951–1953
·11·
THAT YEAR AUTUMN BLANKETED BARCELONA WITH FALLEN LEAVES that rippled through the streets like silvery scales. The distant memory of the night of my sixteenth birthday had put a damper on my spirits, or perhaps life had decided to grant me a sabbatical from my melodramatic woes so that I could begin to grow up. I was surprised at how little I thought about Clara Barceló, or Julián Carax, or that faceless cipher who smelled of burned paper and claimed to be a character straight out of a book. By November, I had observed a month of sobriety, a month without going anywhere near Plaza Real to beg a glimpse of Clara through the window. The merit, I must confess, was not altogether mine. Business in the bookshop was picking up, and my father and I had more on our hands than we could juggle.
“At this rate we’ll have to hire another person to help us find the orders,” my father remarked. “What we’d really need is someone very special, half detective, half poet, someone who won’t charge much or be afraid to tackle the impossible.”
“I think I have the right candidate,” I said.
I found Fermín Romero de Torres in his usual lodgings below the arches of Calle Fernando. The beggar was putting together the front page of the Monday paper from bits he had rescued from a trash can. The lead story went on about the greatness of national public works as yet more proof of the glorious progress of the dictatorship’s policies.
“Good God! Another dam!” I heard him cry. “These fascists will turn us all into a race of saints and frogs.”
“Good morning,” I said quietly. “Do you remember me?”
The beggar raised his head, and a wonderful smile suddenly lit up his face.
“Do mine eyes deceive me? How are things with you, my friend? You’ll accept a swig of red wine, I hope?”
“It’s on me today,” I said. “Are you hungry?”
“Well, I wouldn’t say no to a good plate of seafood, but I’ll eat anything that’s thrown at me.”
On our way to the bookshop, Fermín Romero de Torres filled me in on all manner of escapades he had devised during the last weeks to avoid the Security Services, and in particular one Inspector Fumero, his nemesis, with whom he appeared to have a running battle.
“Fumero?” I asked. That was the name of the soldier who had murdered Clara Barceló’s father in Montjuïc Castle at the outbreak of the war.
The little man nodded fearfully, turning pale. He looked famished and dirty, and he stank from months of living in the streets. The poor fellow had no idea where I was taking him, and I noticed a certain apprehension, a growing anxiety that he tried to disguise with incessant chatter. When we arrived at the shop, he gave me a troubled look.
“Please come in. This is my father’s bookshop. I’d like to introduce you to him.”
The beggar hunched himself up into a bundle of grime and nerves. “No, no, I wouldn’t hear of it. I don’t look presentable, and this is a classy establishment. I would embarrass you….”
My father put his head around the door, glanced at the beggar, and then looked at me out of the corner of his eye.
“Dad, this is Fermín Romero de Torres.”
“At your service,” said the beggar, almost shaking.
My father smiled at him calmly and stretched out his hand. The beggar didn’t dare take it, mortified by his appearance and the filth that covered his skin.
“Listen, I think it’s best if I go away and leave you,” he stammered.
My father took him gently by the arm. “Not at all; my son has told me you’re going to have lunch with us.”
The beggar looked at us amazed, terrified.
“Why don’t you come up to our home and have a nice hot bath?” said my father. “Afterward, if that’s all right, we could walk down to Can Solé for lunch.”
Fermín Romero de Torres mumbled something unintelligible. Still smiling, my father led him toward the front door and practically had to drag him up the stairs to the apartment while I closed the shop. By dint of honeyed words and underhanded tactics, we managed to remove his rags and get him into the bath. With nothing on, he looked like a wartime photograph and trembled like a plucked chicken. Deep marks showed on his wrists and ankles, and his trunk and back were covered with terrible scars that were painful to see. My father and I exchanged horrified looks but made no comment.
The beggar allowed himself to be washed like a child, frightened and shivering. While I searched for clean clothes, I could hear my father’s voice talking to him without pause. I found him a suit that my father no longer wore, an old shirt, and some underwear. From the pile of clothes the beggar had taken off, not even the shoes could be rescued. I chose a pair that my father seldom put on because they were too small for him. Then I wrapped the rags in newspaper, including a pair of trousers that were the color and consistency of smoked ham, and shoved them in the trash can. When I returned to the bathroom, my father was shaving Fermín in the bathtub. Pale and smelling of soap, he looked twenty years younger. From what I could see, the two had already struck up a friendship. It may have been the effects of the bath salts, but Fermín Romero de Torres was on overdrive.
“Believe me, Mr. Sempere, if fate hadn’t led me into the world of international intrigue, what I would have gone for, what was closest to my heart, was humanities. As a child I felt the call of poetry and wanted to be a Sophocles or a Virgil, because tragedy and dead languages give me the goose pimples. But my father, God rest his soul, was a pigheaded man without much vision. He’d always wanted one of his children to join the Civil Guard, and none of my seven sisters would have qualified for that, despite the facial-hair problem that characterized all the women on my mother’s side of the family. On his deathbed my father made me swear that if I didn’t succeed in wearing the Civil Guard’s three-cornered hat, at least I would become a civil servant and abandon all my literary ambitions. I’m rather old-fashioned, and I believe that a father, however dim-witted, should be obeyed, if you see what I mean. Even so, don’t imagine that I set aside all intellectual pursuits during my years of adventure. I’ve read a great deal, and can recite some of the best fragments ofLa Divina Commedia from memory.”
“Come on, boss, put these clothes on, if you don’t mind; your erudition is beyond any doubt,” I said, coming to my father’s rescue.
When Fermín Romero de Torres came out of the bath, sparkling clean, his eyes beamed with gratitude. My father wrapped him up in a towel, and the beggar laughed from the sheer pleasure of feeling clean fabric brushing his skin. I helped him into his change of clothes, which proved about ten sizes too big. My father removed his belt and handed it to me to put around him.
“You look very dashing,” said my father. “Doesn’t he, Daniel?
“Anyone might mistake you for a film star.”
“Come off it. I’m not what I used to be. I lost my Herculean muscles in prison, and since then…”
“Well, I think you look like Charles Boyer, at least in build,” objected my father. “Which reminds me: I wanted to propose something to you.”
“For you, Mr. Sempere, I would kill, if I had to. Just say the name, and I’ll get rid of the guy before he knows what’s hit him.”
“It won’t come to that. What I wanted to offer you was a job in the bookshop. It consists of looking for rare books for our clients. It’s almost like literary archaeology, and it would be just as important for you to know the classics as the basic black-market techniques. I can’t pay you much at present, but you can eat at our table and, until we find you a goodpensión, you can stay here with us, in the apartment, if that’s all right with you.”
The beggar looked at both of us, dumbfounded.
“What do you say?” asked my father. “Will you join the team?”
I thought he was going to say something, but at that moment Fermín Romero de Torres burst into tears.
WITH HIS FIR
ST WAGES, FERMÍN ROMERO DE TORRES BOUGHT HIMSELF A glamorous hat and a pair of galoshes and insisted on treating me and my father to a dish of bull’s tail, which was served on Mondays in a restaurant a couple of blocks away from the Monumental bull ring. My father had found him a room in apensión on Calle Joaquín Costa, where, thanks to the friendship between our neighbor Merceditas and the landlady, we were able to avoid filling in the guest form required by the police, thus removing Fermín Romero de Torres from under the nose of Inspector Fumero and his henchmen. Sometimes I thought about the terrible scars that covered his body and felt tempted to ask him about them, fearing that perhaps Inspector Fumero might have something to do with them. But there was a look in the eyes of that poor man that made me think it was better not to bring up the subject. Perhaps he would tell us one day, when he felt the time was right. Every morning, at seven on the dot, Fermín waited for us by the shop door with a smile on his face, neatly turned out and ready to work an unbroken twelve-hour shift, or even longer. He had discovered a passion for chocolate and Swiss rolls—which did not lessen his enthusiasm for the great names of Greek tragedy—and this meant he had put on a little weight. He shaved like a young swell, combed his hair back with brilliantine, and was growing a pencil mustache to look fashionable. Thirty days after emerging from our bathtub, the ex-beggar was unrecognizable. But despite his spectacular change, where Fermín Romero de Torres had really left us openmouthed was on the battlefield. His sleuthlike instincts, which I had attributed to delirious fantasies, proved surgically precise. He could solve the strangest requests in a matter of days, even hours. Was there no title he didn’t know, and no stratagem for obtaining it at a good price that didn’t occur to him? He could talk his way into the private libraries of duchesses on Avenida Pearson and horse-riding dilettantes, always adopting fictitious identities, and would depart with the said books as gifts or bought for a pittance.