The Prisoner of Heaven: A Novel (28 page)
Read The Prisoner of Heaven: A Novel Online
Authors: Carlos Ruiz Zafon
‘You don’t say. Strangely enough, there was a time when I’d often see him around here,’ said Isaac.
‘That must have been before the war,’ I remarked.
‘No, no … I saw him some time later.’
Fermín and I looked at one another. I wondered whether Isaac had been right and he was beginning to get too old for the job.
‘I don’t wish to contradict you, chief, but that’s impossible,’ said Fermín.
‘Impossible? You’ll have to make yourself a bit clearer …’
‘David Martín fled the country before the war,’ I explained. ‘At the start of 1939, towards the end of the conflict, he came back, crossing over the Pyrenees, and was arrested in Puigcerdà a few days later. He was held in prison until well into 1941, when he was most probably murdered.’
Isaac was staring at us in disbelief.
‘You must believe him, chief,’ Fermín assured him. ‘Our sources are reliable.’
‘I can assure you that David Martín sat in that same chair you’re sitting in, Sempere, and we chatted for a while.’
‘Are you quite sure, Isaac?’
‘I’ve never been more certain of anything in all my life,’ replied the keeper. ‘I remember because I hadn’t seen him for years. He was in a bad way and looked ill.’
‘Can you remember the date when he came?’
‘Perfectly. It was the last night of 1941. New Year’s Eve. That was the last time I saw him.’
Fermín and I were lost in our calculations.
‘That means that what that jailer, Bebo, told Brians, was true,’ I said. ‘The night Valls ordered him to be taken to the old mansion near Güell Park to be killed … Bebo said he later overheard the gunmen saying that something had happened there, that there was someone else in the house … Maybe someone prevented Martín from being killed …’ I speculated.
Isaac was listening to these musings with concern.
‘What are you talking about? Who wanted to murder Martín?’
‘It’s a long story,’ said Fermín. ‘With tons of footnotes.’
‘Well, I hope to hear it one day …’
‘Did you think Martín was in his right mind, Isaac?’ I asked.
Isaac shrugged.
‘One never knew with Martín … That man had a tormented soul. When he left I asked him to let me walk him as far as the train, but he told me there was a car waiting for him outside.’
‘A car?’
‘A Mercedes-Benz, no less. Belonging to someone he called the Boss and who, from what he said, was waiting for him by the front door. But when I went out with him there was no car, no boss, there was nothing at all …’
‘Don’t take this the wrong way, chief, but what with it being New Year’s Eve, and with the festive spirit of the occasion, couldn’t it be that you’d overdone it on the bubbly and, dazed by Christmas carols and the high sugar content of Jijona nougat, you might have imagined all this?’ asked Fermín.
‘As far as the bubbly is concerned, I only drink fizzy lemonade, and the strongest thing I have here is a bottle of hydrogen peroxide,’ Isaac specified. He didn’t seem offended.
‘Forgive me for doubting you. It was a mere formality.’
‘I understand. But believe me when I say that unless whoever came that night was a ghost, and I don’t think he was because one of his ears was bleeding and his hands were shaking with fever – and besides, he polished off all the sugar lumps I had in my kitchen cupboard – Martín was as alive as you or me.’
‘And he didn’t say what he was coming here for, after so long?’
Isaac nodded.
‘He said he’d come to leave something with me and that, when he could, he’d come back for it. Either he’d come or he’d send someone …’
‘And what did he leave with you?’
‘A parcel wrapped in paper and bits of string. I don’t know what was inside.’
I swallowed hard.
‘Do you still have it?’
The parcel, pulled out from the back of a cupboard, lay on Isaac’s desk. When my fingers brushed the paper, the fine layer of dust covering it rose in a cloud of particles that caught the glow of the oil lamp Isaac held on my left. On my right, Fermín unsheathed his paperknife and handed it to me. The three of us looked at one another.
‘God’s will be done,’ said Fermín.
I slipped the knife under the string binding the parcel and cut it. With the greatest care I removed the wrapping until the content became visible. It was a manuscript. The pages were soiled, covered in stains of wax and blood. The first page bore a title written in diabolical handwriting.
The Angel’s Game
By David Martín
‘It’s the book he wrote while he was imprisoned in the tower,’ I murmured, ‘Bebo must have saved it.’
‘There’s something underneath …’ said Fermín.
The corner of a piece of parchment peeped out from beneath the manuscript. I gave it a tug and retrieved an envelope. It was sealed with red wax, stamped with the figure of an angel. On the front of the envelope was a single word, written in red ink:
Daniel
A cold sensation rose up my arms. Isaac, who was witnessing the scene with a mixture of astonishment and consternation, crept out of the room, followed by Fermín.
‘Daniel,’ Fermín called out gently. ‘We’re leaving you alone so you can open the envelope calmly and in private …’
I heard their footsteps as they slowly walked away and was only able to catch the start of their conversation.
‘Listen, chief, with so many emotions I forgot to mention that earlier, when I came in, I couldn’t help overhearing you say that you were thinking of retiring and that there might be an opening soon for the position …’
‘That’s right. I’ve been here too long. Why?’
‘Well, you see, I know we’ve only just met, so to speak, but I might be interested …’
The voices of Isaac and Fermín melted into the echoing labyrinth of the Cemetery of Forgotten Books. Left on my own, I sat in the keeper’s armchair and removed the sealing wax. The envelope contained a folded sheet of ochre-coloured paper. I opened it and began to read.
Barcelona, 31 December 1941
Dear Daniel,
I write these words in the hope and conviction that one day you’ll discover this place, the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, a place that changed my life as I’m sure it will change yours. This same hope leads me to believe that perhaps then, when I’m no longer here, someone will talk to you about me and the friendship that linked me to your mother. I know that if you ever read these words you’ll be overwhelmed by questions and doubts. You’ll find some of the answers in this manuscript, where I have tried to portray my story as I remember it, knowing that my days of lucidity are numbered and that often I can only recall what never took place.
I also know that when you receive this letter, time will have started to wipe out the traces of those events. I know you will harbour suspicions and that if you discover the truth about your mother’s final days you will share my anger and my thirst for revenge. They say it’s for the wise and the righteous to forgive, but I know I’ll never be able to do so. My soul is already condemned and has no hope of salvation. I know I will devote every drop of breath left in me to try to avenge the death of Isabella. But that is my destiny, not yours.
Your mother would not have wished for you a life like mine, at any price. Your mother would have wished you to have a full life, devoid of hatred and resentment. For her sake, I beg you to read this story and once you have read it, destroy it. Forget everything you might have heard about a past that no longer exists, clean your heart of anger and live the life your mother wanted to give you, always looking ahead.
And if one day, kneeling at her graveside, you feel the fire of anger trying to take hold of you, remember that in my story, as in yours, there was an angel who holds all the answers.
Your friend,
DAVID MARTÍN
Over and over again I read the words David Martín was sending me through time, words that seemed to me suffused with repentance and madness, words I didn’t fully understand. I held the letter in my hand for a few more moments and then placed it in the flame of the oil lamp and watched it burn.
I found Fermín and Isaac standing at the foot of the labyrinth, chatting like old friends. When they saw me their voices hushed and they looked at me expectantly.
‘Whatever that letter said only concerns you, Daniel. You don’t have to tell us anything.’
I nodded. The echo of church bells resounded faintly through the walls. Isaac looked at us and checked his watch.
‘Listen, weren’t you two going to a wedding today?’
The bride was dressed in white, and though she wore no dazzling jewellery or ornaments, in the eyes of her groom no woman, in all of history, had ever looked more beautiful than Bernarda did on that early February day, when the sun lit up the square outside the Church of Santa Ana. Don Gustavo Barceló – who must surely have bought all the flowers in Barcelona, for they flooded the entrance to the church – cried like a baby and the priest, the groom’s friend, surprised us all with a lucid sermon that brought tears even to Bea’s eyes, who was no soft touch.
I almost dropped the rings, but all was forgotten when the priest, once the preliminaries were over, invited Fermín to kiss the bride. Just then, I turned my head for a second and thought I saw a figure in the back row of the church, a stranger who was looking at me and smiling. I couldn’t say why, but for a moment I was certain that the unknown man was none other than the Prisoner of Heaven. But when I looked again, he was no longer there. Next to me Fermín held Bernarda tight and smacked a kiss right on her lips that unleashed an ovation captained by the priest.
When I saw my friend kissing the woman he loved it occurred to me that this moment, this instant stolen from time and from God, was worth all the days of misery that had brought us to this place and the many others that were doubtless waiting for us on our return to life. And that everything that was decent and clean and pure in this world and everything for which it was worth living and breathing was in those lips, in those hands and in the look of that fortunate couple who, I knew, would be together for the rest of their lives.
A young man, already showing a few grey hairs, walks in the noon sun amongst the gravestones of the cemetery, beneath a sky melting over the blue of the sea.
In his arms he carries a child who barely understands his words but who smiles when their eyes meet. Together they approach a modest grave, set apart on a balcony overlooking the Mediterranean. The man kneels down in front of the grave and, holding his son, lets him stroke the letters engraved on the stone.
ISABELLA SEMPERE
1917–1939
The man remains there for a while, in silence, his eyelids pressed together to hold his tears.
His son’s voice brings him back to the present and when he opens his eyes again he sees that the boy is pointing at a small figure peeping through the petals of some dried flowers, in the shadow of a glass vase at the foot of the tomb. He is certain that it wasn’t there the last time he visited the grave. His hand searches among the flowers and picks up a plaster statuette, so small it fits in his fist. An angel. The words he thought he’d forgotten flare up in his memory like an old wound.
And if one day, kneeling at her graveside, you feel the fire of anger trying to take hold of you, remember that in my story, as in yours, there was an angel who holds all the answers
…
The child tries to clutch the angel figure resting in his father’s hand and when he touches it with his fingers he accidentally pushes it. The angel falls on the marble and breaks. And that is when the man sees it. A tiny piece of paper hidden inside the plaster. The paper is fine, almost transparent. He unrolls it and instantly recognises the handwriting:
Mauricio Valls
El Pinar
Calle de Manuel Arnús
Barcelona
The sea breeze rises through the gravestones and the breath of a curse caresses his face. He puts the piece of paper in his pocket. Shortly afterwards, he places a white rose on the tombstone and then retraces his steps, carrying the boy in his arms, towards the avenue of cypress trees where the mother of his son is waiting. All three melt into an embrace and when she looks into his eyes she discovers something that was not in them a few moments ago. Something turbulent and dark that frightens her.
‘Are you all right, Daniel?’
He looks at her for a long time and smiles.
‘I love you,’ he says, and kisses her, knowing that the story, his story, has not ended.
It has only just begun.
THE END
Carlos Ruiz Zafón is the author of seven novels, including the international phenomenon
The Shadow of the Wind
, and
The Angel’s Game
. His work has been published in more than forty different languages, and honoured with numerous international awards. He divides his time between Barcelona, Spain, and Los Angeles, California.
The Shadow of the Wind
The Angel’s Game
The Prince of Mist
The Midnight Palace
