The Shadow of the Wind (19 page)

I swallowed. “Vaguely.”

“I heard nothing more about Julián until someone got in touch with the publishers and said he was interested in acquiring all the copies of Carax's novels that were left in the warehouse.”

“Laín Coubert.”

Nuria Monfort nodded.

“Have you any idea who that man was?”

“I have an inkling, but I'm not sure. In March 1936—I remember the date because at the time we were preparing
The Shadow of the Wind
for press—someone called the publishers to ask for his address. He said he was an old friend and he wanted to visit Julián in Paris. Give him a surprise. They put him onto me, and I said I wasn't authorized to give out that information.”

“Did he say who he was?”

“Someone called Jorge.”

“Jorge Aldaya?”

“It might have been. Julián had mentioned him on more than one occasion. I think they had been together at San Gabriel's School, and sometimes Julián referred to him as if he'd been his best friend.”

“Did you know that Jorge Aldaya was Penélope's brother?”

Nuria Monfort frowned. She looked disconcerted.

“Did you give Aldaya Julián's address in Paris?”

“No. He made me feel uneasy.”

“What did he say?”

“He laughed at me, he said he'd find him some other way, and hung up.”

Something seemed to be gnawing at her. I began to suspect where the conversation was taking us. “But you heard from him again, didn't you?”

She nodded nervously. “As I was telling you, shortly after Julián's disappearance that man turned up at Cabestany's firm. By then Mr. Cabestany could no longer work, and his eldest son had taken charge of the business. The visitor, Laín Coubert, offered to buy all the remaining stock of Julián's novels. I thought the whole thing was a joke in poor taste. Laín Coubert was a character in
The Shadow of the Wind.
”

“The devil.”

Nuria Monfort nodded again.

“Did you actually see Laín Coubert?”

She shook her head and lit her third cigarette. “No. But I heard part of the conversation with the son in Mr. Cabestany's office.”

She left the sentence in the air, as if she were afraid of finishing it or wasn't sure how to. The cigarette trembled in her fingers.

“His voice,” she said. “It was the same voice as the man who phoned saying he was Jorge Aldaya. Cabestany's son, an arrogant idiot, tried to ask for more money. Coubert—or whoever he was—said he had to think about the offer. That very night Cabestany's warehouse in Pueblo Nuevo went up in flames, and Julián's books with it.”

“Except for the ones you rescued and hid in the Cemetery of Forgotten Books.”

“That's right.”

“Have you any idea why anyone would have wanted to burn all of Julián Carax's books?”

“Why are books burned? Through stupidity, ignorance, hatred…goodness only knows.”

“Why do you think?” I insisted.

“Julián lived in his books. The body that ended up in the morgue was only a part of him. His soul is in his stories. I once asked him who inspired him to create his characters, and his answer was no one. That all his characters were himself.”

“So if somebody wanted to destroy him, he'd have to destroy those stories and those characters, isn't that right?”

The dispirited smile returned, a smile of defeat and tiredness. “You remind me of Julián,” she said. “Before he lost his faith.”

“His faith in what?”

“In everything.”

She came up to me in the half-light and took my hand. She stroked my palm in silence, as if she wanted to read the lines on my skin. My hand was shaking under her touch. I caught myself tracing the shape of her body under those old, borrowed clothes. I wanted to touch her and feel her pulse burning under her skin. Our eyes had met, and I felt sure that she knew what I was thinking. I sensed that she was lonelier than ever. I raised my eyes and met her serene, open gaze.

“Julián died alone, convinced that nobody would remember him or his books and that his life had meant nothing,” she said. “He would have liked to know that somebody wanted to keep him alive, that someone remembered him. He used to say that we exist as long as somebody remembers us.”

I was filled by an almost painful desire to kiss that woman, an eagerness such as I had never before experienced, not even when I conjured up the ghost of Clara Barceló. She read my thoughts.

“It's getting late for you, Daniel,” she murmured.

One part of me wanted to stay, to lose myself in this strange intimacy, to hear her say again how my gestures and my silences reminded her of Julián Carax.

“Yes,” I mumbled.

She nodded but said nothing, and then escorted me to the door. The corridor seemed endless. She opened the door for me, and I went out onto the landing.

“If you see my father, tell him I'm well. Lie to him.”

I said good-bye to her in a low voice, thanking her for her time and holding out my hand politely. Nuria Monfort ignored my formal gesture. She placed her hands on my arms, leaned forward, and kissed me on the cheek. We gazed at each other, and this time I searched her lips, almost trembling. It seemed to me that they parted a little, and that her fingers were reaching for my face. At the last moment, Nuria Monfort moved away and looked down.

“I think it's best if you leave, Daniel,” she whispered.

I thought she was about to cry, but before I could say anything, she closed the door. I was left on the landing, feeling her presence on the other side of the door, motionless, asking myself what had happened in there. At the other end of the landing, the neighbor's peephole was blinking. I waved at her and attacked the stairs. When I reached the street, I could still feel Nuria Monfort's face, her voice, and her smell, deep in my soul. I carried the trace of her lips, of her breath on my skin through streets full of faceless people escaping from offices and shops. When I turned into Calle Canuda, an icy wind hit me, cutting through the bustle. I welcomed the cold air on my face and walked up toward the university. After crossing the Ramblas, I made my way toward Calle Tallers and disappeared into its narrow canyon of shadows, feeling that I was still trapped in that dark, gloomy dining room where I now imagined Nuria Monfort sitting alone, silently tidying up her pencils, her folders, and her memories, her eyes poisoned with tears.

D
USK FELL ALMOST SURREPTITIOUSLY, WITH A COLD BREEZE AND
a mantle of purple light that slid between the gaps in the streets. I quickened my pace, and twenty minutes later the front of the university emerged like an ocher ship anchored in the night. In his lodge the porter of the Literature Faculty perused the words of the nation's most influential bylines in the afternoon edition of the sports pages. There seemed to be hardly any students left on the premises. The echo of my footsteps followed me through the corridors and galleries that led to the cloister, where the glow of two yellowish lights barely disturbed the shadows. It suddenly occurred to me that perhaps Bea had tricked me, that she'd arranged to meet me there at that untimely hour to avenge my presumption. The leaves on the orange trees in the cloister shimmered with tears of silver, and the sound of the fountain wove its way through the arches. I looked carefully around the patio, contemplating disappointment or maybe a certain cowardly sense of relief. There she was, sitting on one of the benches, her silhouette outlined against the fountain, her eyes looking up toward the vaults of the cloister. I stopped at the entrance to gaze at her, and for a moment I was reminded of Nuria Monfort daydreaming on her bench in the square. I noticed she didn't have her folder or her books with her, and I suspected she hadn't had any classes that afternoon. Perhaps she'd come here just to meet me. I swallowed hard and walked into the cloister. The sound of my footsteps on the paving gave me away and Bea looked up, with a smile of surprise, as if my presence there were just a coincidence.

“I thought you weren't coming,” said Bea.

“That's just what I thought,” I replied.

She remained seated, upright, her knees tight together and her hands on her lap. I asked myself how I could feel so detached from her and at the same time see every line on her lips.

“I've come because I want to prove to you that you were wrong about what you said the other day, Daniel. I'm going to marry Pablo, and I don't care what you show me tonight. I'm off to El Ferrol as soon as he's finished his military service.”

I looked at her as if I'd just missed a train. I realized I'd spent two days walking on air, and now my world seemed to be collapsing.

“And there I was, thinking you'd come because you felt like seeing me.” I managed a weak smile.

I noticed her blushing self-consciously.

“I was only joking,” I lied. “What I was serious about was my promise to show you a face of the city that you don't yet know. At least that will give you cause to remember me, or Barcelona, wherever you go.”

There was a touch of sadness in Bea's smile, as she avoided my eyes. “I nearly went into the cinema, you know. So as not to see you today,” she said.

“Why?”

Bea looked at me but said nothing. She shrugged her shoulders and raised her eyes as if she were trying to catch words that were escaping from her.

“Because I was afraid that perhaps you were right,” she said at last.

I sighed. We were shielded by the evening light and that despondent silence that brings strangers together, and I felt daring enough to say anything that came to my head, even though it might be for the last time.

“Do you love him, or don't you?”

A smile came and went. “It's none of your business.”

“That's true,” I said. “It's only your business.”

She gave me a cold look. “And what does it matter to you?”

“It's none of your business,” I said.

She didn't smile. Her lips trembled. “People who know me know I'm very fond of Pablo. My family and—”

“But I'm almost a stranger,” I interrupted. “And I would like to hear it from you.”

“Hear what?”

“That you really love him. That you're not marrying him to get away from home, to put distance between yourself and Barcelona and your family, to go somewhere where they can't hurt you. That you're leaving and not running away.”

Her eyes shone with angry tears. “You have no right to say that to me, Daniel. You don't know me.”

“Tell me I'm mistaken and I'll leave. Do you love him?”

We looked at each other for a long while, without saying a word.

“I don't know,” she murmured at last. “I don't know.”

“Someone once said that the moment you stop to think about whether you love someone, you've already stopped loving that person forever,” I said.

Bea looked for the irony in my expression. “Who said that?”

“Someone called Julián Carax.”

“A friend of yours?”

I caught myself nodding. “Sort of.”

“You're going to have to introduce him to me.”

“Tonight, if you like.”

We left the university under a bruised sky and wandered aimlessly, going nowhere in particular, just getting used to walking side by side. We took shelter in the only subject we had in common, her brother, Tomás. Bea spoke about him as if he were a virtual stranger, someone she loved but barely knew. She avoided my eyes and smiled nervously. I felt that she regretted what she had said to me in the university cloister, that the words still hurt and were still gnawing at her.

“Listen, what I said to you before,” she said suddenly, “you won't mention a word to Tomás, will you?”

“Of course not. I won't tell anyone.”

She laughed nervously. “I don't know what came over me. Don't be offended, but sometimes one feels freer speaking to a stranger than to people one knows. Why is that?”

I shrugged. “Probably because a stranger sees us the way we are, not as he wishes to think we are.”

“Is that also from your friend Carax?”

“No, I've just made it up to impress you.”

“And how do you see me?”

“Like a mystery.”

“That's the strangest compliment anyone has ever paid me.”

“It's not a compliment. It's a threat.”

“What do you mean?”

“Mysteries must be solved, one must find out what they hide.”

“You might be disappointed when you see what's inside.”

“I might be surprised. And you, too.”

“Tomás never told me you had so much cheek.”

“That's because what little I have, I've reserved entirely for you.”

“Why?”

Because I'm afraid of you, I thought.

We sought refuge in a small café next to the Poliorama Theater. Withdrawing to a table by the window, we asked for some
serrano
ham sandwiches and a couple of white coffees, to warm up. Soon thereafter the manager, a scrawny fellow with the face of an imp, came up to the table with an attentive expression.

“Did yer folks ask for the 'am sandwiches?

We nodded.

“Sorry to 'ave to announce, on behalf of the management 'ere, that there's not a scrap of 'am left. I can offer black, white, or mixed
butifarra,
meatballs, or
chistorra.
Top of the line, extra fresh. I also 'ave pickled sardines, if yer folks can't consume meat products for reasons of religious conscience. It being Friday…”

“I'll be fine with a white coffee, really,” said Bea.

I was starving. “What if you bring two servings of spicy potatoes and some bread, too?”

“Right away, sir. And please, pardon the shortness of supplies. Usually I tend to 'ave everything, even Bolshevik caviar. But s'afternoon, it being the European Cup semifinal, we've had a lot of customers. Great game.”

The manager walked away ceremoniously. Bea watched him with amusement.

“Where's that accent from? Jaén?”

“Much closer: Santa Coloma de Gramanet,” I specified. “You don't often take the subway, do you?”

“My father says the subway is full of riffraff and that if you're on your own, the Gypsies feel you up.”

I was about to say something but decided to keep my mouth shut. Bea laughed. As soon as the coffees and the food arrived, I fell on it all with no pretense at refinement. Bea didn't eat anything. With her hands spread around the steaming cup, she watched me with half a smile, somewhere between curiosity and amazement.

“So what is it you're going to show me today?”

“A number of things. In fact, what I'm going to show you is part of a story. Didn't you tell me the other day that what you like to do is read?”

Bea nodded, arching her eyebrows.

“Well, this is a story about books.”

“About books?”

“About accursed books, about the man who wrote them, about a character who broke out of the pages of a novel so that he could burn it, about a betrayal and a lost friendship. It's a story of love, of hatred, and of the dreams that live in the shadow of the wind.”

“You talk like the jacket blurb of a Victorian novel, Daniel.”

“That's probably because I work in a bookshop and I've seen too many. But this is a true story. As real as the fact that this bread they served us is at least three days old. And, like all true stories, it begins and ends in a cemetery, although not the sort of cemetery you imagine.”

She smiled the way children smile when they've been promised a riddle or a conjuror's trick. “I'm all ears.”

I gulped down the last of my coffee and looked at her for a few moments without saying anything. I thought about how much I wanted to lose myself in those evasive eyes. I thought about the loneliness that would take hold of me that night when I said good-bye to her, once I had run out of tricks or stories to make her stay with me any longer. I thought about how little I had to offer her and how much I wanted from her.

“I can hear your brains clanking, Daniel. What are you planning?”

I began my story with that distant dawn when I awoke and could not remember my mother's face, and I didn't stop until I paused to recall the world of shadows I had sensed that very day in the home of Nuria Monfort. Bea listened quietly, making no judgment, drawing no conclusions. I told her about my first visit to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books and about the night I spent reading
The Shadow of the Wind.
I told her about my meeting with the faceless man and about the letter signed by Penélope Aldaya that I always carried with me without knowing why. I spoke about how I had never kissed Clara Barceló, or anyone, and of how my hands had trembled when I felt the touch of Nuria Monfort's lips on my skin, only a few hours before. I told her how until that moment I had not understood that this was a story about lonely people, about absence and loss, and that that was why I had taken refuge in it until it became confused with my own life, like someone who has escaped into the pages of a novel because those whom he needs to love seem nothing more than ghosts inhabiting the mind of a stranger.

“Don't say anything,” whispered Bea. “Just take me to that place.”

It was pitch dark when we stopped by the front door of the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, in the gloom of Calle Arco del Teatro. I lifted the devil-head knocker and knocked three times. While we waited, sheltering under the arch of the entrance, the cold wind smelled of charcoal. I met Bea's eyes, so close to mine. She was smiling. Soon we heard light footsteps approaching the door, and then the tired voice of the keeper.

“Who's there?” asked Isaac.

“It's Daniel Sempere, Isaac.”

I thought I could hear him swearing under his breath. Then followed the thousand squeaks and groans from the intricate system of locks. Finally the door yielded an inch or two, revealing the vulturine face of Isaac Monfort in candlelight. When he saw me, the keeper sighed and rolled his eyes.

“Stupid of me. I don't know why I ask,” he said. “Who else could it be at this time of night?”

Isaac was clothed in what seemed like a strange crossbreed of dressing gown, bathrobe, and Russian army coat. The padded slippers perfectly matched his checked wool cap, rather like a professor's cap, complete with tassel.

“I hope I didn't get you out of bed,” I said.

“Not at all. I'd only just started saying my prayers….”

He looked at Bea as if he'd just seen a pack of dynamite sticks alight at his feet. “For your own good, I hope this isn't what it looks like,” he threatened.

“Isaac, this is my friend Beatriz, and with your permission I'd like to show her this place. Don't worry, she's completely trustworthy.”

“Sempere, I've known toddlers with more common sense than you.”

“It will only be a moment.”

Isaac let out a snort of defeat and examined Bea carefully, like a suspicious policeman.

“Do you realize you're in the company of an idiot?” he asked.

Bea smiled politely. “I'm beginning to come to terms with it.”

“Sublime innocence! Do you know the rules?”

Bea nodded. Isaac mumbled under his breath and let us in, scanning the shadows of the street, as usual.

“I visited your daughter, Nuria,” I mentioned casually. “She's well. Working hard, but well. She sends you her love.”

“Yes, and poisoned darts. You're not much good at making things up, Sempere. But I appreciate the effort. Come on in.”

Once inside, Isaac handed me the candle and proceeded to lock the door.

“When you've finished, you know where to find me.”

Under the mantle of darkness, we could only just make out the spectral forms of the book maze. The candle projected its bubble of steamy light at our feet. Bea paused, astonished, at the entrance to the labyrinth. I smiled, recognizing in her face the same expression my father must have seen in mine years before. We entered the tunnels and galleries of the maze; they creaked under our footsteps. The marks I had made during my last incursion were still there.

“Come, I want to show you something,” I said.

More than once I lost my own trail and we had to go back a stretch in search of the last sign. Bea watched me with a mixture of alarm and fascination. My mental compass told me we were caught in a knot of spirals that rose slowly toward the very heart of the labyrinth. At last I managed to retrace my steps within the tangle of corridors and tunnels until I entered a narrow passage that felt like a gangway stretching out into the gloom. I knelt down by the last shelf and looked for my old friend hidden behind the row of dust-covered volumes—the layer of dust shining like frost in the candlelight. I took the book and handed it to Bea.