When he had finished his speech I invited the gentlemen to make their way to the exit, either willingly or with the help of a kick—they could choose. Before I slammed the door in their faces, Escobillas was good enough to cast me one of his evil-eyed looks.
“We demand a reply within a week or that will be the end of you,” he muttered.
“In a week you and that idiot partner of yours will be dead,” I replied calmly, without quite knowing why I’d uttered those words.
I spent the rest of the morning staring at the walls, until the bells of Santa María reminded me that it would soon be time for my meeting with Pedro Vidal.
He was waiting for me at the best table in the room, toying with a glass of white wine and listening to the pianist who was playing a piece by Granados with velvet fingers. When he saw me, he stood up and held out his hand.
“Congratulations,” I said.
Vidal smiled, waiting for me to sit down before sitting down himself. We let a minute of silence go by, cocooned by the music and the glances of the distinguished people who greeted Vidal from afar or came up to the table to congratulate him on his success, which was the talk of the town.
“David, you can’t imagine how sorry I am about what has happened,” he began.
“Don’t be sorry, enjoy it.”
“Do you think this means anything to me? The flattery of a few poor devils? My greatest joy would have been to see you succeed.”
“I’m sorry I’ve let you down once again, Don Pedro.”
Vidal sighed.
“David, it’s not my fault if they’ve gone after you. It’s your fault. You were crying out for it. You’re quite old enough to know how these things work.”
“You tell me.”
Vidal clicked his tongue, as if my naïveté offended him.
“What did you expect? You’re not one of them. You never will be. You haven’t wanted to be, and you think they’re going to forgive you. You lock yourself up in that great rambling house and you think you can survive without joining the church choir and putting on the uniform. Well you’re wrong, David. You’ve always been wrong. This isn’t how you play the game. If you want to play alone, pack your bags and go somewhere where you can be in charge of your own destiny, if such a place exists. But if you stay here, you’d better join some parish or other—any one will do. It’s that simple.”
“Is that what you do, Don Pedro? Join the parish?”
“I don’t have to, David. I feed them. That’s another thing you’ve never understood.”
“You’d be surprised how quickly I’m learning. But don’t worry, the reviews are the least of it. For better or worse, tomorrow nobody will remember them, neither mine nor yours.”
“What’s the problem, then?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Is it those two sons of bitches? Barrido and the grave robber?”
“Forget it, Don Pedro. As you say, it’s my fault. Nobody else’s.”
The head waiter came over to the table with an inquiring expression. I hadn’t looked at the menu and wasn’t going to.
“The usual, for both of us,” Vidal told him.
The head waiter left with a bow. Vidal was observing me as if I were a dangerous animal locked in a cage.
“Cristina was unable to come,” he said. “I brought this, so you could sign it for her.”
He put on the table a copy of The Steps of Heaven wrapped in purple paper with the Sempere & Sons stamp on it and pushed it toward me. I made no move to pick it up. Vidal had gone pale. After his forceful remarks and his defensive tone, his manner seemed to have changed. Here comes the final thrust, I thought.
“Tell me once and for all whatever it is you want to say, Don Pedro. I won’t bite.”
Vidal downed his wine in one gulp.
“There are two things I’ve been wanting to tell you. You’re not going to like them.”
“I’m beginning to get used to that.”
“One is to do with your father.”
The bitter smile left my lips.
“I’ve wanted to tell you for years, but I thought it wouldn’t do you any good. You’re going to think I didn’t tell you out of cowardice, but I swear, I swear on anything you hold sacred, that—”
“That what?” I cut in.
Vidal sighed.
“The night your father died—”
“The night he was murdered,” I corrected him icily.
“It was a mistake. Your father’s death was a mistake.”
I looked at him, confused.
“Those men were not out to get him. They made a mistake.”
I recalled the look in the three gunmen’s eyes, in the fog the smell of gunpowder and the sight of my father’s dark blood pouring through my hands.
“The person they wanted to kill was me,” said Vidal almost inaudibly. “An old partner of my father’s discovered that his wife and I …”
I closed my eyes and listened to the morbid laughter rising up inside me. My father had been riddled with bullets because of one of the great Pedro Vidal’s bits of skirt.
“Please say something,” Vidal pleaded.
I opened my eyes.
“What is the second thing you were going to tell me?”
I’d never seen Vidal look so frightened. It suited him.
“I’ve asked Cristina to marry me.”
A long silence.
“She said yes.”
Vidal looked down. One of the waiters came over with the starters. He left them on the table wishing us a bon appétit. Vidal did not dare look at me again. The starters were getting cold. After a while I took the copy of The Steps of Heaven and left.
…
That afternoon, after leaving La Maison Dorée, I found myself making my way down the Ramblas, carrying the copy of The Steps of Heaven. As I drew closer to the corner of Calle del Carmen my hands began to shake. I stopped by the window of the Bagués jewelry shop, pretending to be looking at some gold lockets in the shape of fairies and flowers, dotted with rubies. The ornate façade of El Indio was just a few meters away; anyone would have thought it was a grand bazaar full of wonders and extraordinary objects, not just a shop selling fabrics and linen. I approached the store slowly and stepped into the entrance hall that led to the main door. I knew that she wouldn’t recognize me, that I might not recognize her, but even so I stood there for about five minutes before daring to go in. When I did, my heart was beating hard and my hands were sweating.
The walls were lined with shelves full of large fabric rolls of all types. Shop assistants armed with tape measures and special scissors tied to their belts spread the beautiful textiles on the tables and displayed them as if they were precious jewels to well-bred ladies who were there with their maids and seamstresses.
“Can I help you, sir?”
The words came from a heavily built man with a high-pitched voice, dressed in a flannel suit that looked as if it was about to burst at the seams and fill the shop with floating shreds of cloth. He observed me with a condescending air and a smile midway between forced and hostile.
“No,” I mumbled.
Then I saw her. My mother was coming down a stepladder holding a handful of remnants. She wore a white blouse and I recognized her instantly. Her figure had grown a little fuller and her face, less well chiseled than it used to be, had that slightly defeated expression that comes with routine and disappointment. The shop assistant was annoyed and kept talking to me, but I hardly heard his voice. I only saw her drawing closer, then walking past me. She looked at me for a second, and when she saw that I was watching her, she smiled meekly, the way one smiles at a customer or at one’s boss, and then continued with her work. I had such a lump in my throat that I almost wasn’t able to open my mouth to silence the shop assistant and I hurried off toward the exit, my eyes full of tears. Once I was outside I crossed the street and went into a café. I sat at a table by the window from which I could see the door of El Indio, and I waited.
br />
Almost an hour and a half had gone by when I saw the shop assistant who had tried to serve me come out and lower the entrance shutter. Soon afterwards the lights started to go out and some of the staff emerged. I got up and went outside. A boy of about ten was sitting by the entrance to the next-door building, looking at me. I beckoned him to come closer and when he did, I showed him a coin. He gave me a huge smile—I noticed he was missing a number of teeth.
“See this packet? I want you to give it to a lady who is about to come out right now. Tell her that a gentleman asked you to give it to her, but don’t tell her it was me. Understood?”
The boy nodded. I gave him the coin and the book.
“Now we’ll wait.”
We didn’t have to wait long. Three minutes later I saw her coming out. She was heading for the Ramblas.
“It’s that lady, see?”
My mother stopped for a moment by the portico of the Church of Belén and I made a sign to the boy, who ran after her. I watched the scene from afar, but could not hear her words. The boy handed her the packet and she gave it a puzzled look, not sure whether to accept it or not. The boy insisted and finally she took the parcel in her hands and watched the boy run away. Disconcerted, she turned right and left, searching with her eyes. She weighed the packet, examining the purple wrapping paper. Finally curiosity got the better of her and she opened it.
I watched her take the book out. She held it with both hands, looking at the cover, then turning it over to examine the back. I could hardly breathe and wanted to go up to her and say something but couldn’t. I stood there, only a few meters away from my mother, spying on her without her being aware of my presence, until she set off again, clutching the book, walking toward Colón. As she passed the Palace of La Virreina she went up to a waste bin and threw the book in it. I watched as she headed down the Ramblas until she was lost among the crowd, as if she had never been there at all.
19
Sempere was alone in the bookshop gluing down the spine of a copy of Fortunata and Jacinta that was coming apart. When he looked up, he saw me on the other side of the door. In just a few seconds he realized the state I was in and signaled to me to come in. As soon as I was inside, he offered me a chair.
“You don’t look well, Martín. You should see a doctor. If you’re scared, I’ll come with you. Physicians make my flesh crawl too, with their white gowns and those sharp things in their hands, but sometimes you’ve got to go through with it.”
“It’s just a headache, Señor Sempere. It’s already getting better.”
Sempere poured me a glass of Vichy water.
“Here. This cures everything except stupidity, which is an epidemic on the rise.”
I smiled weakly at Sempere’s joke, then drank the water and sighed. I felt a wave of nausea and an intense pressure throbbed behind my left eye. For a moment I thought I was going to collapse and I closed my eyes. I took a deep breath, praying I wouldn’t drop dead right there. Destiny couldn’t have such a perverse sense of humor as to guide me to Sempere’s bookshop so I that could present him with a corpse, after all he’d done for me. I felt a hand holding my head gently. Sempere. I opened my eyes and saw the bookseller and his son, who had popped in, watching me as if they were at a wake.
“Shall I call the doctor?” Sempere’s son asked.
“I’m better, thanks. Much better.”
“Your way of getting better makes one’s hair stand on end. You look gray.”
“A bit more water?”
Sempere’s son rushed to fill me another glass.
“Forgive me for this performance,” I said. “I can assure you I hadn’t rehearsed it.”
“Don’t talk nonsense!”
“It might do you good to eat something sweet. Maybe it was a drop in your sugar levels …” the son suggested.
“Run over to the baker’s on the corner and get him something,” the bookseller agreed.
When we were alone, Sempere fixed his eyes on mine.
“I promise I’ll go to the doctor,” I said.
A few minutes later the bookseller’s son returned with a paper bag full of the most select assortment of buns in the area. He handed it to me and I chose a brioche that any other time would have seemed to me as tempting as a chorus girl’s backside.
“Bite,” Sempere ordered.
I ate my brioche obediently, and slowly I began to feel better.
“He seems to be reviving,” Sempere’s son observed.
“What the corner shop buns can’t cure …”
At that moment we heard the doorbell. A customer had come into the bookshop, and at Sempere’s nod his son left us to serve him. The bookseller stayed by my side, trying to feel my pulse by pressing on my wrist with his index finger.
“Señor Sempere, do you remember many years ago when you said that if one day I needed to save a book, really save it, I should come to see you?”
Sempere glanced at the rejected book I had rescued from the bin, which I was still holding in my hands.
“Give me five minutes.”
It was beginning to get dark when we walked down the Ramblas among a crowd who had come out for a stroll on a hot, humid evening. There was only the hint of a breeze; balconies and windows were wide open, with people leaning out of them, watching the human parade under an amber-colored sky. Sempere walked quickly and didn’t slow down until we sighted an arcade of shadows at the entrance to Calle Arco del Teatro. Before crossing over he looked at me solemnly and said:
“Martín, you mustn’t tell anyone what you’re about to see. Not even Vidal. No one.”
I nodded, intrigued by the bookseller’s air of seriousness and secrecy. I followed him through the narrow street, barely a gap between bleak and dilapidated buildings that seemed to bend over like willows of stone, attempting to close the strip of sky between the rooftops. Soon we reached a large wooden door that looked as if it might be guarding the entrance to an old basilica that had spent a century at the bottom of a lake. Sempere went up the steps to the door and took hold of the brass knocker shaped like a smiling demon’s face. He knocked three times, then came down the steps again to wait by my side.
“You can’t tell anyone what you’re about to see.”
“No one. Not even Vidal. No one.”
Sempere nodded severely. We waited for about two minutes until we heard what sounded like a hundred bolts being unlocked simultaneously. With a deep groan, the large door opened halfway and a middle-aged man with thick gray hair, a face like a vulture, and penetrating eyes stuck his head round it.
“We were doing just fine and now here’s Sempere!” he snapped. “What are you bringing me today? Another aficionado who hasn’t got himself a girlfriend because he’d rather live with his mother?”
Sempere paid no attention to this sarcastic greeting.
“Martín, this is Isaac Monfort, the keeper of this place. His friendliness has no equal. Do everything he says. Isaac, this is David Martín, a good friend, a writer, and a trustworthy person.”
The man called Isaac looked me up and down without much enthusiasm and then exchanged a glance with Sempere.
“A writer is never trustworthy. Let’s see, has Sempere explained the rules to you?”
“Only that I can never tell anyone what I will see here.”
“That is the first and most important rule. If you don’t observe it, I personally will wring your neck. Do you get the idea?”
“One hundred percent.”
“Come on, then,” said Isaac, motioning me to come in.
“I’ll say good-bye now, Martín. You’ll find a safe place here.”
I realized that Sempere was referring to the book, not to me. He hugged me and disappeared into the night. I stepped inside and Isaac pulled a lever on the back of the door. A thousand mechanisms, knotted together in a web of rails and pulleys, sealed it up. Isaac took a lamp from the floor and raised it to my face.
“You don’t look well,” he pronounced
.
“Indigestion,” I replied.
“From what?”
“Reality.”
“Join the queue.”
We walked down a long corridor and on either side, through the shadows, I thought I could make out frescoes and marble staircases. We advanced farther into the palatial building and shortly there appeared in front of us what looked like the entrance to a large hall.
“What have you got there?” Isaac asked.
“The Steps of Heaven. A novel.”
“What a preposterous title. Don’t tell me you’re the author.”
“Who, me?”
Isaac sighed, shaking his head and mumbling to himself.
“And what else have you written?”
“City of the Damned, volumes one to twenty-seven, among other things.”
Isaac turned round and smiled with satisfaction.
“Ignatius B. Samson?”
“May he rest in peace, and at your service.”
At that point, the mysterious keeper stopped and left the lamp resting on what looked like a balustrade rising in front of a large vault. I looked up and was spellbound. There before me stood a colossal labyrinth of bridges, passages, and shelves full of hundreds of thousands of books, forming a gigantic library of seemingly impossible perspectives. Tunnels zigzagged through the immense structure, which seemed to rise in a spiral toward a large glass dome, curtains of light and darkness filtering through it. Here and there I could see isolated figures walking along footbridges and up stairs or carefully examining the contents of the passageways of that cathedral of books and words. I couldn’t believe my eyes and I looked at Isaac Monfort in astonishment. He was smiling like an old fox enjoying his favorite game.
“Ignatius B. Samson, welcome to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books.”
20
I followed the keeper to the foot of the large nave that housed the labyrinth. The floor we were stepping over was sown with tombstones, their inscriptions, crosses, and faces dissolving into the stone. The keeper stopped and lowered the gas lamp so that the light slid over some of the pieces of the macabre puzzle.