The Prisoner of Heaven: A Novel (2 page)

‘Good morning,’ came a deep, broken voice from the doorway.

3

Cast against the light from the street, the silhouette resembled a tree trunk lashed by the wind. The visitor sported a dark, old-fashioned suit and presented a grim figure as he leaned on his walking stick. He took one step forward, limping visibly. The light from the small lamp on the counter revealed a face lined by age and the unmistakable trace of misfortune. The man stared at me for a few moments, sizing me up unhurriedly. He had the cold eyes of a bird of prey, patient and calculating.

‘Are you Señor Sempere?’

‘I’m Daniel. Señor Sempere is my father, but he’s not in right now. Is there anything I can help you with?’

The visitor ignored my question and began to wander around the bookshop examining everything in detail with almost covetous interest. The limp affecting him suggested that the wounds concealed beneath those clothes must have been quite severe.

‘Souvenirs from the war,’ said the stranger, as if he’d read my thoughts.

I kept my eyes on him, following his inspection tour through the bookshop, suspecting where he was going to drop anchor. Just as I’d imagined, he stopped in front of the ebony and glass cabinet, a relic dating back to the shop’s origin in 1888 when Great-grandfather Sempere, then a young man recently arrived from his fortune-seeking adventures in the Americas, had borrowed some money to buy an old glove shop and turn it into a bookshop. That cabinet, crown jewel of the shop, was reserved for the most valuable items.

The visitor drew close enough to the cabinet for his breath to leave a trail on the glass. He pulled out a pair of spectacles, put them on and proceeded to study the contents. His expression made me think of a weasel examining freshly laid eggs in a chicken coop.

‘Beautiful piece,’ he murmured. ‘Looks pricey.’

‘A family heirloom. Its value is mostly sentimental,’ I replied, feeling uncomfortable at the assessments of that peculiar customer whose gaze seemed bent on costing even the air we were breathing.

After a while he put his spectacles away and spoke in a measured tone.

‘I understand that a gentleman, well known for his wit, works for you.’

When I didn’t reply immediately, he turned round and threw me a withering look.

‘As you can see, I’m on my own. Perhaps, sir, if you would kindly tell me what book you’re after, I could try to find you a copy, with pleasure.’

The stranger granted me a smile that was anything but friendly and then nodded.

‘I see you have a copy of
The Count of Monte Cristo
in that cabinet.’

He wasn’t the first customer to notice the book. I gave him the official sales patter we reserved for such occasions.

‘The gentleman has a very good eye. It’s a magnificent edition, numbered and with illustrations by Arthur Rackham. It belonged to the private library of an important collector in Madrid. A unique piece, and catalogued.’

The visitor listened without interest, focusing his attention on the consistency of the ebony shelves and making it clear that my words bored him.

‘All books look the same to me, but I like the blue on that cover,’ he replied in a scornful tone. ‘I’ll take it.’

Under other circumstances I would have jumped for joy at the thought of being able to sell what was probably the most expensive book in the entire shop, but the thought that it should end up in the hands of that character made my stomach turn. Something told me that if that volume left the bookshop, nobody would ever bother to read even the first paragraph.

‘It’s a very costly edition. If you like, sir, I can show you other editions of the same work in perfect condition and at much more reasonable prices.’

People with a meagre soul always try to make others feel small too, and the stranger, who could probably conceal his on the head of a pin, gave me his most disdainful look.

‘And with blue covers too,’ I added.

He ignored the impertinence of my irony.

‘No, thank you. This is the one I want. I don’t care about the price.’

I agreed reluctantly and walked over to the cabinet. As I pulled out the key and opened the glass door, I could feel the stranger’s eyes piercing my back.

‘Good things are always under lock and key,’ he muttered under his breath.

I took the book and sighed.

‘Is the gentleman a collector?’

‘I suppose you could call me that. But not of books.’

I turned round with the book in my hand.

‘And what do you collect, sir?’

Once again, the stranger ignored my question and stretched a hand out for the book. I had to resist the urge to put the volume back in the cabinet and turn the key. My father would never forgive me if I let such a sale go by when business was so bad.

‘The price is three hundred and fifty pesetas,’ I said before handing it to him, hoping the figure would make him change his mind.

He nodded without batting an eyelid and pulled out a one-thousand-peseta note from the pocket of a suit that cannot have been worth a
duro
. I wondered whether the note was forged.

‘I’m afraid I don’t have change for such a large note, sir.’

I would have asked him to wait a moment while I ran down to the nearest bank for change and, at the same time, to make sure it wasn’t a fake, but I didn’t want to leave him alone in the bookshop.

‘Don’t worry. It’s genuine. Do you know how you can tell?’

The stranger raised the note against the light.

‘Look at the watermarks. And these lines. The texture …’

‘Is the gentleman an expert in forgeries?’

‘In this world, everything is a fake, young man. Everything except money.’

He placed the note in my hand and closed my fist over it, patting my knuckles.

‘Keep the change for my next visit,’ he said. ‘On account.’

‘It’s a lot of money, sir. Six hundred and fifty pesetas …’

‘Loose change.’

‘Let me give you a receipt then.’

‘I trust you.’

The stranger examined the book without interest.

‘By the way, it’s a gift. I’m going to ask you to deliver it in person.’

For a moment, I hesitated.

‘We don’t normally do deliveries, but in this case we’ll be happy to take care of your package, free of charge. May I ask whether the address is in Barcelona itself or …?’

‘It’s right here,’ he said.

His icy look seemed to betray years of anger and resentment.

‘Would you like to include a dedication, or add a personal note before I wrap the book up, sir?’

The visitor opened the book at the title page with some difficulty. I noticed then that his left hand was artificial, made of painted porcelain. He pulled out a fountain pen and wrote a few words. Then he gave the book back to me and turned to leave. I watched him as he hobbled towards the door.

‘Would you be so kind as to give me the name and address where you would like us to deliver the book, sir?’ I asked.

‘It’s all there,’ he said, without turning his head.

I opened the book and looked for the page with the inscription the stranger had written out.

For Fermín Romero de Torres,
who came back from among the dead
and holds the key to the future.
13

Then I heard the tinkle of the doorbell and when I looked up, the stranger was gone.

I dashed over to the door and peered out into the street. The visitor was limping away, merging with the silhouettes that moved through the veil of blue mist sweeping up Calle Santa Ana. I was about to call him, but I bit my tongue. The easiest thing would have been to let him go and have done with it, but my instinct and my characteristic lack of prudence got the better of me.

4

I hung the
CLOSED
sign on the door and locked up, determined to follow the stranger through the crowd. I knew that if my father returned and discovered that I had abandoned my post – on the one occasion when he’d left me alone and bang in the middle of that sales drought – I’d be in serious trouble. But I’d think of a convenient excuse along the way. Better to face my father’s temper than be consumed by the anxiety left in me by that sinister character, and not know what was the true intent of his business with Fermín.

A professional bookseller has few opportunities to acquire the fine art of following a suspect in the field without being spotted. Unless a substantial number of his customers are prominent defaulters, such opportunities are only granted to him vicariously by the collection of crime stories and penny dreadfuls on his bookshelves. Clothes maketh not the man, but crime, or its presumption, maketh the detective, especially the amateur sleuth.

While I followed the stranger towards the Ramblas, I recalled the essentials, beginning by leaving a good fifty metres between us, camouflaging myself behind someone larger and always having a quick hideaway ready – a doorway or a shop – in case the subject I was tailing should stop and turn around without warning. When he reached the Ramblas the stranger crossed over to the central boulevard and began to walk down towards the port. The boulevard was festooned with traditional Christmas decorations and more than one shop had decked its window with lights, stars and angels announcing a seasonal bonanza. If the regime’s radio said better times were ahead, it must be true.

In those days, Christmas still retained a certain aura of magic and mystery. The powdery light of winter, the hopeful expressions of people who lived among shadows and silences, lent that setting a slight air of promise in which at least children and those who had learned the art of forgetting could still believe.

Perhaps that is why it became increasingly obvious to me that nobody seemed more out of place amid all that Christmas fantasy than the peculiar object of my investigation. He limped slowly, often stopping by one of the bird stalls or flower stands to admire parakeets and roses, as if he’d never before set eyes on one. A couple of times he walked over to the newspaper kiosks that dotted the Ramblas and amused himself glancing at the covers of papers and magazines and idly twirling the postcard carousels. He acted as if he had never been there in his life, like a child or a tourist walking down the Ramblas for the first time – but then children and tourists often display an air of innocence that comes with not knowing one’s whereabouts, whereas our man couldn’t have looked less innocent even with the blessing of Baby Jesus, whose statue he passed when he reached the Church of Belén.

Then he stopped, apparently entranced by a cockatoo that was eyeballing him from one of the animal stalls opposite the entrance to Calle Puertaferrisa. Approaching the birdcage just as he’d approached the glass cabinet in the bookshop, the stranger started mumbling something to the cockatoo. The bird, a specimen with a large head, the body of a capon and luxurious plumage, survived the stranger’s sulphuric breath and applied itself with great relish and concentration to what his visitor was reciting. In case there was any doubt, the bird nodded its head repeatedly and raised its feathery pink crest, visibly excited.

After a few minutes, the stranger, satisfied with his avian exchange, resumed his itinerary. No more than thirty seconds later, as I walked past the bird stall, I noticed that a small hullabaloo had broken out. The shop assistant, plainly embarrassed, was hastily covering the cockatoo’s cage with a hood because the bird kept repeating with exemplary elocution the refrain,
Franco, you prick, you can’t lift your dick
. I was in no doubt at all about the source of the couplet. The stranger at least displayed a daring sense of humour and audacious political leanings, which in those days were as rare as skirts worn above the knee.

Distracted by the incident, I thought I’d lost sight of him, but soon I glimpsed his hunched figure standing in front of the window of the Bagués jewellery shop. I sidled over to one of the scriveners’ booths bordering the entrance to the Palace of La Virreina and observed him carefully. His eyes shone like rubies and the sight of gold and precious stones behind the bulletproof pane seemed to have awoken a lust in him that not even a row of chorus girls from La Criolla in its years of splendour could have aroused.

‘A love letter, an application, a request to the distinguished official of your choice, a spontaneous “hope this letter finds you well” for the relatives in the country, young man?’

The scribe whose booth I had adopted as a hiding place was peering out like a father confessor and looked at me expectantly, hoping I’d make use of his services. The poster above the counter read:

OSWALDO DARÍO DE MORTENSSEN

MAN OF LETTERS AND FREE THINKER

Writes love letters, petitions, wills, poems, praises,
greetings, pleas, obituaries, hymns, dissertations, applications
and all types of compositions in all classic styles and metrics
Ten céntimos per sentence (rhymes are extra)
Special prices for widows, disabled war veterans and minors
.

‘What say you, young man? A love letter of the sort that makes girls of a courting age wet their petticoats with desire? I’ll give you a special price.’

I showed him my wedding ring. Oswaldo, the scribe, shrugged his shoulders, unperturbed.

‘These are modern times,’ he argued. ‘If you knew the number of married men and women who come by my booth …’

I read the notice again. There was something familiar about it, which I couldn’t put my finger on.

‘Your name rings a bell …’

‘I’ve seen better times. Maybe from back then.’

‘Is it your real name?’

‘
Nom de plume
. An artist’s name needs to match his mission. On my birth certificate I’m Jenaro Rebollo, but with a name like that, who is going to entrust their love letters to me …? What do you say to the day’s offer? Are we to prepare a letter of passion and longing?’

‘Some other time.’

The scribe nodded with resignation. He followed my eyes and frowned, intrigued.

‘Watching the lame guy, aren’t you?’ he remarked casually.

‘Do you know him?’ I asked.

‘For about a week now I’ve seen him walk past this place every day and stop right there, by the jeweller’s shop window, where he stares open mouthed as if what was on show were not rings and necklaces but Bella Dorita’s bare derriere,’ he explained.