‘That doesn’t count. I’m talking about a present for personal use and enjoyment.’
Fermín looked intrigued.
‘Don’t tell me it’s a porcelain Madonna or a figurine of Saint Teresa. Bernarda has such an ample collection already that I don’t know where we’re going to find room to sit down.’
‘Don’t worry. It’s not an object.’
‘Don’t tell me it’s money …’
‘As you know, I don’t have a céntimo, unfortunately. The one with the funds is my father-in-law and he doesn’t splash it about.’
‘These new Francoists are as tight as two coats of paint.’
‘My father-in-law is a good man, Fermín. Don’t have a go at him.’
‘Let’s draw a line under the matter, but don’t change the subject now you’ve put the sweet in my mouth. What present?’
‘Guess.’
‘A batch of Sugus sweets.’
‘Cold, cold …’
Fermín arched his eyebrows, dying with curiosity. Suddenly, his eyes lit up.
‘No … It was about time.’
I nodded.
‘There’s a time for everything. Now, listen carefully. You mustn’t tell anyone what you’re about to see today, Fermín. No one …’
‘Not even Bernarda?’
6
The first light of the day spilled like liquid copper over the cornices of Rambla de Santa Mónica. It was a Sunday morning and the streets were quiet and deserted. When we entered the narrow alleyway of Calle Arco del Teatro, the ghostly beam of light penetrating from the Ramblas dimmed and by the time we reached the large wooden door we had become submerged in a city of shadows.
I climbed the steps and rapped with the knocker a few times. The echo trailed off inside, like ripples on a pond. Fermín, who had assumed a respectful silence and looked like a boy on his first day of school, turned to me anxiously.
‘Isn’t it rather early to call?’ he asked. ‘I hope the chief doesn’t get annoyed …’
‘This isn’t a department store. There are no opening times,’ I reassured him. ‘And here the chief is called Isaac. Don’t speak unless he asks you something first.’
Fermín nodded compliantly.
‘Not a peep.’
A couple of minutes later I heard the dance of cogs, pulleys and levers operating the lock and I stepped down again. The door opened just a fraction and the vulturine face of Isaac Montfort, the keeper, peered round with its usual steely look. The keeper’s eyes alighted first on me and, after a quick glance at Fermín, proceeded to X-ray, catalogue and examine him from head to toe.
‘This must be the illustrious Fermín Romero de Torres,’ he murmured.
‘At your service, and God’s and …’
I silenced Fermín with a nudge and smiled at the severe keeper.
‘Good morning, Isaac.’
‘A good morning, Sempere, will be one when you don’t call at dawn, or while I’m in the toilet, or on a religious holiday,’ replied Isaac. ‘Come on, in with you.’
The keeper opened the door a bit further and we slid through. When the door closed behind us, Isaac retrieved his oil lamp from the floor and Fermín was able to observe the elaborate movements of the lock as it folded back upon itself like the insides of the biggest clock in the world.
‘A burglar could age like a good Camembert trying to prise this one open,’ he let slip.
I threw him a warning glance and he quickly put a finger to his lips.
‘Collection or delivery?’ asked Isaac.
‘Well, you see, I’ve been meaning to bring Fermín here for ages so he could get to know the place first-hand. I’ve often talked to him about it. He’s my best friend and he’s getting married today, at noon,’ I explained.
‘Gracious,’ said Isaac. ‘Poor thing. Are you sure you wouldn’t like me to offer you nuptial asylum here?’
‘Fermín is quite convinced about getting married, Isaac.’
The keeper looked Fermín up and down. Fermín smiled apologetically.
‘What courage.’
Isaac guided us along the wide corridor to the entrance of the gallery leading into the large hall. I let Fermín walk ahead of me so that he could discover with his own eyes a vision that no words could describe.
His tiny figure was engulfed by the great beam of light pouring down from the glass dome in the ceiling. Brightness fell in a vaporous cascade over the sprawling labyrinth of corridors, tunnels, staircases, arches and vaults that seemed to spring from the floor like the trunk of an endless tree of books and branched heavenwards displaying an impossible geometry. Fermín stepped on to a gangway extending like a bridge into the base of the structure. He gazed at the sight open mouthed. I drew up to him and put a hand on his shoulder.
‘Welcome to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, Fermín.’
7
In my experience, whenever someone discovered that place, their reaction was always one of bewitchment and amazement. The beauty and the mystery of the premises reduced the visitor to a silent, dream-like contemplation. Naturally, Fermín had to be different. He spent the first half-hour hypnotised, wandering like a man possessed through every nook and cranny of the large jigsaw formed by the winding labyrinth. He stopped to rap his knuckles against flying buttresses and columns, as if he doubted their solidity. He stood at different angles and perspectives, forming a spyglass with his hands and trying to decipher the logic of the construction. He walked through the spiral of libraries with his large nose almost touching the infinite rows of spines running along endless pathways, making a mental note of titles and cataloguing whatever he discovered on his way. I followed a few steps behind him, with a mixture of alarm and anxiety.
I was beginning to suspect that Isaac was going to kick us out of there when I bumped into the keeper on one of the bridges suspended between book-lined vaults. To my surprise, not only did he show no sign of irritation but he was smiling good-humouredly as he watched Fermín’s progress during his first exploration of the Cemetery of Forgotten Books.
‘Your friend is a rather peculiar specimen,’ Isaac reckoned.
‘You haven’t scratched the surface yet.’
‘Don’t worry about him, leave him alone. He’ll come down from his cloud eventually.’
‘What if he gets lost?’
‘He seems to be on the ball. He’ll work it out.’
I wasn’t so sure, but I didn’t want to contradict Isaac. I walked with him to the room that doubled as his office and accepted the cup of coffee he was offering me.
‘Have you explained the rules to your friend?’
‘Fermín and rules are incompatible notions. But I have summed up the basics and he replied with a convincing: “But of course, who do you take me for?”’
While Isaac filled my cup again he caught me gazing at a photograph of his daughter Nuria hanging above his desk.
‘It will soon be two years since she left us,’ he said with a sadness that cut through the air.
I looked down, distressed. A hundred years could go by and the death of Nuria Montfort would still be on my mind, as would the certainty that if I’d never met her she might still be alive. Isaac caressed the photograph with his eyes.
‘I’m getting old, Sempere. It’s about time someone took my post.’
I was about to protest at such a suggestion when Fermín walked in with his face all flushed, and panting as if he’d just run a marathon.
‘So?’ asked Isaac. ‘What do you think?’
‘Glorious. Although it doesn’t appear to have a toilet. At least not that I noticed.’
‘I hope you didn’t pee in some corner.’
‘I made a superhuman effort to hold it in and make it back here.’
‘It’s that door on the left. You’ll have to pull the chain twice, the first time it never works.’
While Fermín relieved himself, Isaac poured out a cup of coffee which awaited him steaming hot when he returned.
‘I have a few questions I’d like to ask you, Don Isaac.’
‘Fermín, I don’t think …’ I pleaded.
‘It’s fine. Go ahead, ask.’
‘The first lot is related to the history of the premises. The second one concerns technical and architectural works. And the third is basically bibliographic …’
Isaac laughed. It was the first time I’d ever heard him laugh and I didn’t know whether to take it as a sign from heaven or the presage of some imminent disaster.
‘First you’ll have to choose the book you want to save,’ Isaac proposed.
‘I’ve had my eye on a few, but even if it’s just for sentimental reasons, I’ve selected this one, if that’s all right.’
He pulled a book out of his pocket. It was bound in red leather, with the title embossed in gold letters and an engraving of a skull on the title page.
‘Well I never: City of the Damned, episode thirteen: Daphne and the impossible staircase, by David Martín,’ Isaac read.
‘An old friend,’ Fermín explained.
‘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?’
8
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 rec
eive 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?’
9
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.