The Shadow of the Wind (28 page)

Four months later Jorge Aldaya was born, and although Jacinta was to offer him all the affection that the mother never knew how to give him, or never wished to—for she was an ethereal lady, Jacinta thought, who always seemed trapped in her own reflection in the mirror—the governess realized that this was not the child Zacarías had promised her. During those years Jacinta gave up her youth and became a different woman. The other Jacinta had been left behind in the pensión of the Ribera quarter, as dead as Ramoneta. Now she lived in the shadow of the Aldayas' luxuries, far from that dark city that she had come to hate so much and into which she did not venture, not even on her monthly day off. She learned to live through others, through a family that sat on top of a fortune the size of which she could scarcely conceive. She lived in the expectation of that child, who would be female, like the city, and to whom she would give all the love with which God had poisoned her soul. Sometimes Jacinta asked herself whether that dreamy peace that filled her days, that absence of consciousness, was what some people called happiness, and she wanted to believe that God, in His infinite silence, had, in His way, answered her prayers.

Penélope Aldaya was born in the spring of 1902. By then Don Ricardo Aldaya had already bought the house on Avenida del Tibidabo, that rambling mansion that Jacinta's fellow servants were convinced lay under the influence of some powerful spell, but which Jacinta did not fear, because she knew that what others took to be magic was nothing more than a presence that only she could capture in dreams: the shadow of Zacarías, who hardly resembled the man she remembered and who now only manifested himself as a wolf walking on his two hind legs.

Penélope was a fragile child, pale and slender. Jacinta saw her grow like a flower in winter. For years she watched over her every night, personally prepared every one of her meals, sewed her clothes, was by her side when she went through her many illnesses, when she said her first words, when she became a woman. Mrs. Aldaya was one more figure in the scenery, a prop that came on- and offstage according to the dictates of decorum. Before going to bed, she would come and say good night to her daughter and tell her she loved her more than anything in the world, that she was the most important thing in the universe to her. Jacinta never told Penélope that she loved her. The nurse knew that those who really love, love in silence, with deeds and not with words. Secretly Jacinta despised Mrs. Aldaya, that vain, empty creature who grew old in the corridors of the mansion, weighed down by the jewels with which her husband—who for years had set anchor in foreign ports—kept her quiet. She hated her because, of all women, God had chosen her to give birth to Penélope while her own womb, the womb of the true mother, remained barren. In time, as if the words of her husband had been prophetic, Jacinta even lost her womanly shape. She grew thin and austere in appearance, she wore the look of tired skin and tired bone. Her breasts withered until they were but scraps of skin, her hips were like the hips of a boy, and her flesh, hard and angular, didn't even catch the eye of Don Ricardo Aldaya, who only needed to sense a hint of liveliness to set him off in a frenzy—as all the maids in the house and in the houses of his close friends knew only too well. Better this way, thought Jacinta. She had no time for nonsense.

All her time was for Penélope. She read to her, she accompanied her everywhere, she bathed her, dressed her, undressed her, combed her hair, took her out for walks, put her to bed and woke her up. But above all she spoke to her. Everyone took her for a batty nurse, a spinster with nothing in her life other than her job in the house, but nobody knew the truth: Jacinta was not only Penélope's mother, she was her best friend. From the moment the girl began to speak and articulate her thoughts, which was much sooner than Jacinta remembered in any other child, they shared their secrets and their lives.

The passing of time only strengthened this union. When Penélope reached adolescence, they were already inseparable friends. Jacinta saw Penélope blossom into a woman whose beauty and radiance were evident to more eyes than just hers. When that mysterious boy called Julián came to the house, Jacinta noticed that from the very first moment a current flowed between him and Penélope. They were joined by a bond, similar to the one that joined her to Penélope, but also different. More intense. Dangerous. At first she thought she would come to hate the boy, but soon she realized that she did not hate Julián Carax and would never be able to. As Penélope fell under Julián's spell, she, too, allowed herself to be dragged into it and in time desired only what Penélope desired. Nobody had noticed, nobody had paid attention, but, as usual, the essential part of the matter had been settled before the story had begun, and by then it was too late.

Many months of wistful looks and longings would pass before Julián Carax and Penélope were able to be alone. Their lives were ruled by chance. They met in corridors, they looked at each other from opposite ends of the table, they brushed silently against each other, they felt each other's absence. They exchanged their first words in the library of the house on Avenida del Tibidabo one stormy afternoon when “Villa Penélope” was suddenly filled with the dim light of candles—only a few seconds stolen from the darkness in which Julián thought he saw in the girl's eyes the certainty that they both felt the same, that the same secret was devouring them. Nobody seemed to notice. Nobody but Jacinta, who saw with growing anxiety the game of furtive glances that Penélope and Julián were playing in the shadow of the Aldayas. She feared for them.

By then Julián had begun to have sleepless nights, writing stories for Penélope from midnight to dawn. Then, after going up to the house on Avenida del Tibidabo with any old excuse, he would look for the moment when he could slip into Jacinta's room and give her his pages so that she, in turn, could give them to the girl. Sometimes Jacinta would hand him a note that Penélope had written for him, and he would spend days rereading it. That game went on for months. While time brought them no good fortune, Julián did whatever was necessary to be close to Penélope. Jacinta helped him, to see Penélope happy, to keep that light glowing. Julián, for his part, felt that the casual innocence of the beginning was now fading and it was necessary to start giving way. That is how he began to lie to Don Ricardo about his plans for the future, to fake an enthusiasm for a career in banking and finance, to feign an affection and an attachment for Jorge Aldaya that he did not feel, in order to justify his almost constant presence in the house on Avenida del Tibidabo; to say only what he knew others wanted to hear him say, to read their looks and their hopes, to put aside honesty and sincerity, to feel that he was selling his soul away in pieces, and to fear that if he ever did come to deserve Penélope, there would be nothing left of the Julián who saw her the first time. Sometimes Julián would wake up at dawn, burning with anger, longing to tell the world his real feelings, to face Don Ricardo Aldaya and tell him he had no interest whatsoever in his fortune, his opportunities for the future, or his company; that he only wanted his daughter, Penélope, and was thinking of taking her as far away as possible from that empty, shrouded world in which her father had imprisoned her. The light of day dispelled his courage.

There were times when Julián opened his heart to Jacinta, who was beginning to love the boy more than she would have wished. She would often leave Penélope for a moment and, with the pretext of going to collect Jorge from school, would see Julián and deliver Penélope's messages to him. That is how she met Fernando, who, many years later, would be her only remaining friend while she awaited death in the hell of Santa Lucía—the hell that had been prophesied by the angel Zacarías. Sometimes the nurse would mischievously take Penélope with her to the school and facilitate a brief encounter between the two youngsters, watching a love grow between them such as she had never known, which had been denied to her. It was also about this time that Jacinta noticed the somber and disturbing presence of that quiet boy whom everyone called Francisco Javier, the son of the caretaker at San Gabriel's. She would catch him spying on them, reading their gestures from afar and devouring Penélope with his eyes.

Jacinta kept a photograph of Julián and Penélope taken by Recasens, the official portrait photographer of the Aldayas, by the door of the hat shop in Ronda de San Antonio. It was an innocent image, taken at midday in the presence of Don Ricardo and of Sophie Carax. Jacinta always carried it with her. One day, while she was waiting for Jorge outside the school, the governess absentmindedly left her bag by one of the fountains, and, when she went back for it, found young Fumero prowling around the area, looking at her nervously. That night she looked for the photograph but couldn't find it and was certain that the boy had stolen it. On another occasion, a few weeks later, Francisco Javier Fumero went up to Jacinta and asked her whether she could give Penélope something from him. When Jacinta asked what this thing was, the boy pulled out a piece of cloth in which he had wrapped what looked like a figure carved in pinewood. Jacinta recognized Penélope in the figure and felt a shiver. Before she was able to say anything, the boy left. On her way back to the house on Avenida del Tibidabo, Jacinta threw the figure out of the car window, as if it were a piece of stinking carrion. More than once Jacinta was to wake up at dawn, covered in sweat, plagued by nightmares in which that boy with a troubled look threw himself on Penélope with the cold and indifferent brutality of some strange insect.

Some afternoons, when Jacinta went to fetch Jorge and he was late, the governess would talk to Julián. He, too, was beginning to love that severe-looking woman. Soon, when a problem cast a shadow over his life, she and Miquel Moliner were always the first, and sometimes the last, to know. Once Julián told Jacinta he had seen his mother and Don Ricardo Aldaya talking in the fountain courtyard while they waited for the pupils to come out. Don Ricardo seemed to be enjoying Sophie's company, and Julián felt a little uneasy, because he was aware of the magnate's reputation as a Don Juan and of his voracious appetite for the delights of the female sex—with no distinction of class or condition—to which only his saintly wife seemed immune. “I was telling your mother how much you like your new school,” Don Ricardo told him. When he said good-bye to them, Don Ricardo gave them a wink and walked off laughing boisterously. His mother was quiet during the journey home, clearly offended by the comments Don Ricardo Aldaya had made to her.

Sophie was suspicious of Julián's growing bond with the Aldayas and the way he had abandoned his old neighborhood friends and his family. She was not alone. Whereas his mother showed her displeasure in sadness and silence, the hatter displayed bitterness and spite. His initial enthusiasm about the widening of his clientele to include the flower of Barcelona society had evaporated. He hardly ever saw his son now and soon had to employ Quimet, a local boy and one of Julián's former friends, as a helper and apprentice in the shop. Antoni Fortuny was a man who felt he could talk openly only about hats. He locked his deeper feelings in the prison of his heart for months on end, until they became hopelessly embittered. He grew ever more bad-tempered and irritable. He found fault with everything—from the efforts of poor Quimet to learn the trade to Sophie's attempts to make light of Julián's seeming abandonment of them.

“Your son thinks he's someone because those rich guys treat him like a performing monkey,” he'd say in a depressed tone, full of resentment.

One day, almost three years to the day since Don Ricardo Aldaya's first visit to the Fortuny and Sons hat shop, the hatter left Quimet in charge of the shop and told him he'd be back at noon. He boldly presented himself at the offices of Aldaya's consortium on Paseo de Gracia and asked to see Don Ricardo.

“And whom have I the honor to announce?” asked a clerk in a haughty manner.

“His personal hatter.”

Don Ricardo received him, somewhat surprised but well disposed, imagining that perhaps Fortuny was bringing him a bill—small shopkeepers never quite understood the protocol when it comes to money.

“So tell me, what can I do for you, Fortunato, old fellow?”

Without further delay, Antoni Fortuny proceeded to explain to Don Ricardo that he was very much mistaken concerning his son, Julián.

“My son, Don Ricardo, is not the person you think he is. Quite the contrary, he is an ignorant, lazy boy, with no more talent than the pretentiousness his mother has put into his head. He'll never get anywhere, believe me. He lacks ambition and character. You don't know him. He can be very clever at sweet-talking strangers, making them believe he knows a lot about everything, when in fact he knows nothing about anything. He's a mediocre person. But I know him better than anyone, and I thought I should warn you.”

Don Ricardo Aldaya listened to the speech in silence, without blinking.

“Is that all, Fortunato?”

Seeing that it was, the industrialist pressed a button on his desk. A few moments later, the secretary who had received Fortuny on arrival appeared at the office door.

“Our friend Fortunato is leaving, Balcells,” Don Ricardo announced. “Please accompany him to the door.”

The icy tone of the industrialist did not please the hatter.

“If you don't mind, Don Ricardo: it's Fortuny, not Fortunato.”

“Whatever. You're a very sad man, Fortuny. I'd appreciate it if you didn't come by here again.”

When Fortuny found himself back on the street, he felt more alone than ever, more convinced that everyone was against him. Only a few days later, the smart clients brought in by his relationship with Aldaya began to send messages canceling their orders and settling their bills. In just a few weeks, he had to dismiss Quimet, because there wasn't enough work for both in the shop. The boy wasn't much use anyhow, he told himself. He was mediocre and lazy, like all of them.