“The remains of an old necropolis,” he explained. “But don’t let that give you any ideas about dropping dead here.”
We continued toward an area just before the central structure that seemed to form a kind of threshold. In the meantime Isaac was rattling off the rules and duties, fixing his gaze on me from time to time, while I tried to soothe him with docile assent.
“Article one: the first time somebody comes here he has the right to choose a book, whichever one he likes, from all the books there are in this place. Article two: upon adopting a book you undertake to protect it and do all you can to ensure it is never lost. For life. Any questions so far?”
I looked up toward the immensity of the labyrinth.
“How does one choose a single book among so many?”
Isaac shrugged.
“Some like to believe it’s the book that chooses the person. Destiny, in other words. What you see here is the sum of centuries of books that have been lost and forgotten, books condemned to be destroyed and silenced forever, books that preserve the memory and soul of times and marvels that no one remembers anymore. None of us, not even the oldest, knows exactly when it was created or by whom. It’s probably as old as the city itself and has been growing with it, in its shadow. We know the building was erected using the ruins of palaces, churches, prisons, and hospitals that may once have stood here. The origin of the main structure goes back to the beginning of the eighteenth century and has not stopped evolving since then. Before that, the Cemetery of Forgotten Books was hidden under the tunnels of the medieval town. Some say that during the Inquisition people who were learned and had free minds would hide forbidden books in sarcophagi or bury them in ossuaries all over the city to protect them, trusting that future generations would dig them up. In the middle of the last century a long tunnel was discovered leading from the bowels of the labyrinth to the basement of an old library that nowadays is sealed off, hidden in the ruins of an old synagogue in the Jewish quarter. When the last of the old city walls came down, there was a landslide and the tunnel was flooded with water from an underground stream that for centuries has run beneath what is now the Ramblas. It’s inaccessible at present, but we imagine that for a long time the tunnel was one of the main entrance routes to this place. Most of the structure you can see was developed during the nineteenth century. Only about a hundred people know about it and I hope Sempere hasn’t made a mistake by including you among them …”
I shook my head vigorously, but Isaac was looking at me with skepticism.
“Article three: you can bury your own book wherever you like.”
“What if I get lost?”
“An additional clause, from my own stable: try not to get lost.”
“Has anyone ever got lost?”
Isaac snorted.
“When I started here years ago there was a story doing the rounds about Darío Alberti de Cymerman. I don’t suppose Sempere has told you this, of course.”
“Cymerman? The historian?”
“No, the seal tamer. How many Darío Alberti de Cymermans do you know? What happened is that in the winter of 1889 Cymerman went into the labyrinth and disappeared for a whole week. He was found in one of the tunnels, half dead with fright. He had walled himself up behind a few rows of holy texts so he couldn’t be seen.”
“Seen by whom?”
Isaac looked at me for a long while.
“By the man in black. Are you sure Sempere hasn’t told you anything about this?”
“I’m sure he hasn’t.”
Isaac lowered his voice, adopting a conspiratorial tone.
“Over the years, some members have occasionally seen the man in black in the tunnels of the labyrinth. They all describe him differently. Some even swear they have spoken to him. There was a time when it was rumored that the man in black was the ghost of a cursed author whom one of the members had betrayed after taking one of his books from here and not keeping the promise to protect it. The book was lost forever and the deceased author wanders eternally along the passages, seeking revenge—well, you know, the sort of Henry James touch people like so much.”
“You’re not saying you believe the rumors.”
“Of course not. I have another theory. The Cymerman theory.”
“Which is … ?”
“That the man in black is the master of this place, the father of all secret and forbidden knowledge, of wisdom and memory, the bringer of light to storytellers and writers since time immemorial. He is our guardian angel, the angel of lies and of the night.”
“You’re pulling my leg.”
“Every labyrinth has its Minotaur,” Isaac suggested. He smiled mysteriously and pointed toward the entrance to the stacks.
“It’s all yours.”
I set off along a footbridge then slowly entered a long corridor of books that formed a rising curve. When I reached the end of the curve the tunnel divided into four passages radiating out from a small circle from which a spiral staircase rose, vanishing upwards into the heights. I climbed the steps until I reached a landing that led into three different tunnels. I chose one of them, the one I thought would lead to the heart of the building, and entered. As I walked, I ran my fingers along the spines of hundreds of books. I let myself be imbued with the smell, with the light that filtered through the cracks or from the glass lanterns embedded in the wooden structure, floating among mirrors and shadows. I wandered aimlessly for almost half an hour until I reached a sort of closed chamber with a table and chair. The walls were made of books and seemed quite solid except for a small gap that looked as if someone had removed a book from it. I decided that this would be the new home for The Steps of Heaven. I looked at the cover for the last time and reread the first paragraph, imagining the moment when, many years after I was dead and forgotten, someone, if fortune would have it, would go down that same route and reach that room to find an unknown book into which I had poured everything I had. I placed it there, feeling that I was the one being left on the shelf. It was then that I felt the presence behind me and turned to find the man in black, his eyes fixed steadily on mine.
21
At first I didn’t recognize my own eyes in the mirror, one of the many that formed a chain of muted light along the corridors of the labyrinth. What I saw in the reflection was my face and my skin, but the eyes were those of a stranger. Murky, dark, and full of malice. I looked away and felt the nausea returning. I sat on the chair by the table, imagining that even Dr. Trías might be amused at the thought that the tenant lodged in my brain—the tumorous growth, as he liked to call it—had decided to deal me the final blow in that place, thereby granting me the honor of being the first permanent citizen of the Cemetery of Forgotten Books buried in the company of his last and most ill-fated work, the one that had taken him to the grave. Someone would find me there in ten months, or ten years, or perhaps never. A grand finale worthy of City of the Damned.
I think I was saved by my bitter laughter. It cleared my head and reminded me of where I was and what I’d come to do. I was about to stand up again when I saw it. It was a rough-looking volume, dark, with no visible title on the spine. It lay on top of a pile of four other books at the end of the table. I picked it up. The covers were bound in what looked like leather, some sort of tanned hide darkened as a result of much handling rather than by dye. The title, which seemed to have been branded onto the cover, was blurred, but on the fourth page it could be clearly read:
Lux Aeterna
D.M.
I imagined that the initials, the same as mine, were those of the author, but there was no other indication in the book to confirm this. I turned a few pages quickly and recognized at least five different languages alternating through the text—Spanish, German, Latin, French, and Hebrew. Reading a paragraph at random, I was reminded of a prayer in the traditional liturgy that I couldn’t quite remember. I wondered whether the notebook was perhaps some sort of missal or prayer book. The text was punctuated with numerals and verses, with the first words
underlined, as if to indicate episodes or thematic divisions. The more I examined it, the more I realized it reminded me of the Gospels and catechisms of my school days.
I could have left, chosen any other tome from among the hundreds of thousands, and abandoned that place, never to return. I almost thought I had done just that, as I walked back through the tunnels and corridors of the labyrinth, until I became aware of the book in my hands, like a parasite stuck to my skin. For a split second the idea crossed my mind that the book had a greater desire to leave the place than I did, that it was somehow guiding my steps. After a few detours, in the course of which I passed the same copy of the fourth volume of LeFanu’s complete works a couple of times, I found myself, without knowing how, by the spiral staircase, and from there I succeeded in locating the way out of the labyrinth. I had imagined Isaac would be waiting for me by the entrance, but there was no sign of him, although I was certain that somebody was observing me from the shadows. The large vault of the Cemetery of Forgotten Books was engulfed in silence.
“Isaac?” I called out.
My voice trailed off into the shadows. I waited in vain for a few seconds and then made my way toward the exit. The blue mist that filtered down from the dome began to fade until the darkness around me was almost absolute. A few steps farther on I made out a light flickering at the end of the gallery and realized that the keeper had left his lamp at the foot of the door. I turned to scan the dark gallery one last time, then pulled the handle that kick-started the mechanism of rails and pulleys. One by one, the bolts were released and the door yielded a few centimeters. I pushed it just enough to get through and stepped outside. A few seconds later the door began to close again, sealing itself with a sonorous echo.
22
As I walked away from that place I felt its magic leaving me and the nausea and pain took over once more. Twice I fell flat on my face, first in the Ramblas and the second time when I was trying to cross Vía Layetana, where a boy lifted me up and saved me from being run over by a tram. It was with great difficulty that I managed to reach my front door. The house had been closed all day and the heat—that humid, poisonous heat that seemed to suffocate the town a little more every day—floated on the air like dusty light. I went up to the study in the tower and opened the windows wide. Only the faintest of breezes blew and the sky was bruised by black clouds that moved in slow circles over Barcelona. I left the book on my desk and told myself there would be time enough to examine it in detail. Or perhaps not. Perhaps time was already coming to an end for me. It didn’t seem to matter much anymore.
At that point I could barely stand and needed to lie down in the dark. I salvaged one of the bottles of codeine pills from the drawer and swallowed two or three. I kept the bottle in my pocket and made my way down the stairs, not quite sure whether I would be able to get to my room in one piece. When I reached the corridor I thought I noticed a flickering along the line of light coming from beneath the main door. I walked slowly to the entrance, leaning on the walls.
“Who’s there?” I asked.
There was no reply, no sound at all. I hesitated for a moment, then opened the door and stepped out onto the landing. I leaned over to look down the stairs that descended in a spiral, merging into darkness. There was nobody there. When I turned back to face the door I noticed that the small lamp on the landing was blinking. I went back into the house and turned the key to lock the door, something I often forgot to do. Then I saw it. A cream-colored envelope with a serrated edge. Someone had slipped it under the door. I knelt down to pick it up. The paper was thick, porous. The envelope was sealed and had my name on it. The emblem on the wax was in the shape of the angel with its wings outspread.
I opened it.
Dear Señor Martín,
I’m going to spend some time in the city and it would give me great pleasure to meet up with you and perhaps take the opportunity to revisit the subject of my proposal. I’d be very grateful if, unless you’re otherwise engaged, you would care to join me for dinner this coming Friday the 13th at 10 o’clock, in a small villa I have rented for my stay in Barcelona. The house is on the corner of Calle Olot and Calle San José de la Montaña, next to the entrance to Güell Park. I trust and hope that you will be able to come.
Your friend,
ANDREAS CORELLI
I let the note fall to the floor and dragged myself to the gallery. There I lay on the sofa, sheltering in the half-light. There were seven days to go before that meeting. I smiled to myself. I didn’t think I was going to live seven more days. I closed my eyes and tried to sleep. The constant ringing in my ears seemed more deafening than ever and stabs of white light lit up my mind with every beat of my heart.
You won’t even be able to think about writing.
I opened my eyes again and scanned the bluish shadow that veiled the gallery. Next to me, on the table, lay the old photograph album that Cristina had left behind. I hadn’t found the courage to throw it away, or even touch it. I reached for the album and opened it, turning the pages until I found the image I was looking for. I pulled it off the paper and examined it. Cristina, as a child, walking hand in hand with a stranger along the jetty that stretched out into the sea. I pressed the photograph to my chest and let exhaustion overcome me. Slowly, the bitterness and the anger of that day, of those years, faded and a warm darkness wrapped itself around me, full of voices and hands that were waiting for me. I had an overwhelming desire to surrender to it, but something held me back and a spear of light and pain wrenched me from that pleasant sleep that promised to have no end.
Not yet, the voice whispered, not yet.
…
I sensed the days were passing because there were times when I awoke and thought I could see sunlight coming through the slats of the shutters. Once or twice I was sure I heard someone knocking on the door and voices calling my name, but after a while they stopped. Hours or days later I got up and put my hands to my face and found blood on my lips. I don’t know whether I went outside or whether I dreamed that I did, but without knowing how I had got there I found myself making my way up Paseo del Borne, toward the basilica of Santa María del Mar. The streets were deserted beneath a mercury moon. I looked up and thought I saw the ghost of a huge black storm spreading its wings over the city. A gust of white light split the skies and a mantle woven with raindrops cascaded down like a shower of glass daggers. A moment before the first drop touched the ground, time came to a standstill and hundreds of thousands of tears of light were suspended in the air like specks of dust. I knew that someone or something was walking behind me and could feel its breath on the nape of my neck, cold and filled with the stench of rotting flesh and fire. I could feel its fingers, long and pointed, hovering over my skin, and at that moment the young girl who lived only in the picture I held against my chest seemed to approach through the curtain of rain. She took me by the hand and pulled me, leading me back to the tower house, away from that icy presence that had crept along behind me. When I recovered consciousness, the seven days had passed.
Day was breaking on Friday, 13 July.
23
Pedro Vidal and Cristina Sagnier were married that afternoon. The ceremony took place at five o’clock in the chapel of the monastery of Pedralbes, attended by only a small section of the Vidal clan; the most select members of the family, including the father of the groom, were ominously absent. Had there been any gossip, people would have said that the youngest son’s idea of marrying the chauffeur’s daughter had fallen on the hosts of the dynasty like a jug of cold water. But there was none. Thanks to a discreet pact of silence, the chroniclers of society had better things to do that afternoon and not a single publication mentioned the ceremony. There was nobody there to relate how a bevy of Vidal’s ex-lovers had clustered together by the church door, crying in silence like a sisterhood of faded widows still clinging to their last hope. Nobody was there to describe how Cristina held a bunch of white roses in her hand and wore an ivory-colored dress that matched he
r skin, making it seem as if the bride were walking naked up to the altar, with no other adornment than the white veil covering her face and an amber sky that appeared to be retreating into an eddy of clouds above the tall bell tower.
There was nobody there to recall how she stepped out of the car and how, for an instant, she stopped to look up at the square opposite the church door, until her eyes found the dying man whose hands shook and who was muttering words nobody could hear, words he would take with him to the grave.
“Damn you. Damn you both.”
…
Two hours later, sitting in the armchair of my study, I opened the case that had come to me years before and that contained the only thing I had left of my father. I pulled out the pistol that was wrapped in a cloth and opened the barrel. I inserted six bullets and closed the weapon. I placed the barrel against my temple, drew back the hammer and shut my eyes. At that moment I felt a gust of wind whipping against the tower and the study windows burst open, hitting the wall with great force. An icy breeze touched my face, bringing with it the lost breath of great expectations.
24
The taxi slowly made its way up to the outskirts of the Gracia neighborhood, toward the solitary, somber grounds of Güell Park. The large houses that dotted the hill, peering through a grove that swayed in the wind like black water, had seen better days. I spied the large door of the estate high up on the hillside. Three years earlier, when Gaudí died, the heirs of Count Güell had sold the deserted grounds—whose sole inhabitant had been the estate’s architect—to the town hall for one peseta. Now forgotten and neglected, the garden of columns and towers looked more like a cursed paradise. I told the driver to stop by the gates and paid my fare.
“Are you sure you wish to get out here, sir?” the driver asked, looking uncertain. “If you like, I can wait for you for a few minutes …”