The brief but intense days of initial terror were not long in coming. General Goded’s troops set off along the Diagonal and Paseo de Gracia toward the center, where the shooting began. It was Sunday, and a lot of people had still come out into the streets thinking they were going to spend the day picnicking along the road to Las Planas. The blackest days of the war in Barcelona, however, were still two years away. Shortly after the start of the skirmish, General Goded’s troops surrendered, due to a miracle or to poor communication between the commanders. Lluís Companys’s government seemed to have regained control, but what really happened would become obvious in the next few weeks.
Barcelona had passed into the hands of the anarchist unions. After days of riots and street fighting, rumors finally circulated that the four rebel generals had been executed in Montjuïc Castle shortly after the surrender. A friend of Miquel’s, a British journalist who was present at the execution, said that the firing squad was made up of seven men but that at the last moment dozens of militiamen joined the party. When they opened fire, the bodies were riddled with so many bullets that they collapsed in unrecognizable pieces and had to be put into the coffins in an almost liquid state. There were those who wanted to believe that this was the end of the conflict, that the fascist troops would never reach Barcelona and the rebellion would be extinguished along the way.
We learned that Julián was in Barcelona on the day of Goded’s surrender, when we got a letter from Irene Marceau in which she told us that Julián had killed Jorge Aldaya in a duel, in Père Lachaise cemetery. Even before Aldaya expired, an anonymous call had alerted the police to the event. Julián was forced to flee from Paris immediately, pursued by the police, who wanted him for murder. We had no doubts as to who had made that call. We waited anxiously to hear from Julián so that we could warn him of the danger that stalked him and protect him from a worse trap than the one laid out for him by Fumero: the discovery of the truth. Three days later Julián still had not appeared. Miquel did not want to share his anxiety with me, but I knew perfectly well what he was thinking. Julián had come back for Penélope, not for us.
“What will happen when he finds out the truth?” I kept asking.
“We’ll make sure he doesn’t,” Miquel would answer.
The first thing he was going to discover was that the Aldaya family had disappeared. He would not find many places where he could start looking for Penélope. We made a list of such places and began our own expedition. The mansion on Avenida del Tibidabo was just an empty property, closed away behind chains and veils of ivy. A flower vendor, who sold bunches of roses and carnations on the opposite corner, said he only remembered seeing one person approaching the house recently, but this was almost an old man, with a bit of a limp.
“Frankly, he seemed pretty nasty. I tried to sell him a carnation for his lapel, and he told me to piss off, saying there was a war on and it was no time for flowers.”
He hadn’t seen anyone else. Miquel bought some withered roses from him and, just in case, gave him the phone number of the editorial room at the Diario de Barcelona. The man could leave a message there if by chance anyone should turn up looking like the person we’d described. Our next stop was San Gabriel’s School, where Miquel met up with Fernando Ramos, his old school companion.
Fernando was now a Latin and Greek teacher and had been ordained a priest. His heart sank when he saw Miquel looking so frail. He told us Julián had not come to see him, but he promised to get in touch with us if he did, and try to hold him back. Fumero had been there before us, he confessed with alarm, and had told him that, in times of war, he’d do well to be watchful.
“He said a lot of people were going to die very soon, and uniforms—soldiers’ or priests’—weren’t going to stop the bullets….”
Fernando Ramos admitted that it wasn’t clear what unit or group Fumero belonged to, and he hadn’t wanted to ask him. I find it impossible to describe to you those first days of the war in Barcelona, Daniel. The air seemed poisoned with fear and hatred. People eyed one another suspiciously, and the streets smelled of a silence that knotted your stomach. Every day, every hour, fresh rumors and gossip circulated. I remember one night when Miquel and I were walking home down the Ramblas. They were completely deserted. Miquel looked at the buildings, glimpsing faces that hid behind closed shutters, noticing how they scanned the shadows of the street. He said he could feel the knives being sharpened behind those walls.
The following day we went to the Fortuny hat shop, without much hope of finding Julián there. One of the residents in the building told us that the hatter was terrified by the upheavals of the last few days and had locked himself up in the shop. No matter how much we knocked, he wouldn’t open the door. That afternoon there had been a shoot-out only a block away, and the pools of blood were still fresh on Ronda de San Antonio. A dead horse lay on the paving, at the mercy of stray dogs that were tearing open its bullet-ridden stomach, while a group of children watched and threw stones at them. We only managed to see the hatter’s frightened face through the grille of the door. We told him we were looking for his son, Julián. The hatter replied that his son was dead and told us to get out of there or he’d call the police. We left the place feeling disheartened.
For days we scoured cafés and shops, asking for Julián. We made inquiries in hotels and pensiones, in railway stations, in banks where he might have gone to change money—nobody remembered a man fitting Julián’s description. We feared that he might have fallen into Fumero’s clutches, and Miquel managed to get one of his colleagues from the newspaper, who had contacts in Police Headquarters, to find out whether Julián had been taken to jail. There was no sign of him. Two weeks went by, and it looked as if Julián had vanished into thin air.
Miquel hardly slept, hoping for news of his friend. One evening he returned from his usual afternoon walk with a bottle of port, of all things. The newspaper staff had presented it to him, he said, because he’d been told by the subeditor that his column was going to have to be canceled.
“They don’t want trouble, and I can understand.”
“And what are you going to do?”
“Get drunk, for a start.”
Miquel drank barely half a glass, but I finished off almost the entire bottle without noticing, on an empty stomach. At around midnight I was overpowered by drowsiness and collapsed on the sofa. I dreamed that Miquel was kissing my forehead and covering me with a shawl. When I woke up, I felt a sharp, stabbing pain in my head, which I recognized as the prelude to a fierce hangover. I went to look for Miquel, to curse the hour when he’d had the bright idea of getting me drunk, but I realized I was alone in the apartment. I went over to the desk and saw that there was a note on the typewriter in which he asked me not to be alarmed and to wait for him there. He’d gone out in search of Julián and would soon bring him home. He ended the note saying that he loved me. The note fell out of my hands. Then I noticed that before leaving, Miquel had removed his things from the desk, as if he wasn’t planning to use it anymore. I knew that I would never see him again.
·8·
THAT AFTERNOON THE FLOWER VENDOR HAD CALLED THE OFFICES of the Diario de Barcelona and left a message for Miquel saying he’d seen the man we had described to him prowling around the old mansion like a ghost. It was past midnight when Miquel reached number 32, Avenida del Tibidabo, a dark, deserted valley struck by darts of moonlight that filtered through the grove. Although he hadn’t seen him for seventeen years, Miquel recognized Julián by his light, almost catlike walk. His silhouette glided through the shadows of the garden, near the fountain. Julián had jumped over the garden wall and lay in wait by the house like a restless animal. Miquel could have called to him, but he preferred not to alert any possible witnesses. He felt that furtive eyes were spying on the avenue from the dark windows of neighboring mansions. He walked around the walls of the estate until he reached the part by the old tennis courts and the coach houses. There he noticed the crevices in the wall that Jul
ián must have used as steps, and the flagstones that had come loose on the top. He lifted himself up, almost out of breath, feeling an acute pain in his chest and experiencing periodic waves of blindness. He lay down on the wall, his hands shaking, and called Julián in a whisper. The silhouette that hovered by the fountain stood still, joining the rest of the statues. Miquel saw two shining eyes fixing on him. He wondered whether Julián would recognize him, after seventeen years and an illness that had taken away his very breath. The silhouette slowly came closer, wielding a long, shiny object in his right hand. A piece of glass.
“Julián…” Miquel murmured.
The figure stopped in its tracks. Miquel heard the piece of glass fall on the gravel. Julián’s face emerged from the shadows. A two-week stubble covered his features, which were sharper than they used to be.
“Miquel?”
Unable to jump down to the other side, or even climb back to the street, Miquel held out his hand to him. Julián hauled himself onto the wall and, holding his friend’s fist tightly with one hand, laid the palm of his other hand on his face. They gazed silently at one another for a long time, each sensing the wounds life had inflicted on the other.
“We must leave this place, Julián. Fumero is looking for you. That business with Aldaya was a trap.”
“I know,” murmured Carax in a monotone.
“The house is locked. Nobody has lived here for years,” Miquel added. “Come, help me get down, and let’s get out of here.”
Carax climbed down the wall. When he clutched Miquel with both hands, he felt his friend’s wasted body under the loose clothes. There seemed to be no flesh or muscle left. Once they were on the other side, Carax supported Miquel by the armpits, so that he was almost carrying him, and they walked off together into the darkness of Calle Román Macaya.
“What is wrong with you?” whispered Carax.
“It’s nothing. Some fever. I’m getting better.”
Miquel already gave off the smell of illness, and Julián asked no further questions. They went down León XIII until they reached Paseo de San Gervasio, where they saw the lights of a café. They sought refuge at a table in the back of the room, away from the entrance and the windows. A couple of regulars sat at the bar, smoking cigarettes and listening to the radio. The waiter, a man with a waxy pallor and downcast eyes, took their order. Warm brandy, coffee, and whatever food was available.
Miquel didn’t eat at all. Carax, obviously starving, ate for the two of them. The two friends looked at each other in the sticky light of the café, spellbound. The last time they had seen each other face-to-face, they were half the age they were now. They had parted as boys, and now life presented one of them with a fugitive and the other with a dying man. Both wondered whether this was due to the cards they’d been dealt or to the way they had played them.
“I’ve never thanked you for everything you’ve done for me during these years, Miquel.”
“Don’t begin now. I did what I had to do and what I wanted to do. There’s nothing to thank me for.”
“How’s Nuria?”
“As you left her.”
Carax looked down.
“We got married months ago. I don’t know whether she wrote to tell you.”
Carax’s lips froze, and he shook his head slowly.
“You have no right to reproach her for anything, Julián.”
“I know. I have no right to anything.”
“Why didn’t you come to us for help, Julián?”
“I didn’t want to get you into trouble.”
“That is out of your hands now. Where have you been all this time? We thought the ground had swallowed you.”
“Almost. I’ve been home. In my father’s apartment.”
Miquel stared at him in amazement. Julián went on to explain how, when he arrived in Barcelona, unsure where to go, he had set off toward his childhood home, fearing there would be nobody left there. The doors of the hat shop were still open, and an old-looking man, with no hair and no fire in his eyes, languished behind the counter. Julián hadn’t wanted to go in, or let him know he’d returned, but Antoni Fortuny had raised his eyes and looked at the stranger on the other side of the window. Their eyes met. Much as Julián wanted to run away, he was paralyzed. He saw tears welling up in the hatter’s eyes, saw him drag himself to the door and come out into the street, speechless. Without uttering a word, he led his son into the shop and pulled down the metal grille. Once the outer world had been sealed off, he embraced him, trembling and howling with grief.
Later the hatter explained that the police had been around asking after Julían two days earlier. Someone called Fumero—a man with a bad reputation, of whom it was said that only a month before he’d been in the pay of General Goded’s fascist thugs and was now making out to be friends with the anarchists—had told him that Julián Carax was on his way to Barcelona, that he’d cold-bloodedly murdered Jorge Aldaya in Paris, and that he was sought for a number of other crimes, a catalog that the hatter didn’t bother to listen to. Fumero trusted that, if by some remote and improbable chance his prodigal son made an appearance there, the hatter would see fit to do his duty as a citizen and report him. Fortuny told him that of course they could count on his help, though secretly it irritated him that a snake like Fumero should assume such baseness in him. No sooner had the sinister cortege left the shop than the hatter set off toward the cathedral chapel where he had first met Sophie. There he prayed to his saint, begging him to guide his son back home before it was too late. Now that Julián had arrived, he warned him of the danger that hung over him.
“Whatever you have come to do in Barcelona, son, let me do it for you while you hide in the apartment. Your room is just as you left it and is yours for however long you may need it.”
Julián admitted that he’d returned to look for Penélope Aldaya. The hatter swore he would find her and that, once they had been reunited, he would help them both flee to a safe place, far from Fumero, far from the past, far from everything.
For days Julián hid in the apartment on Ronda de San Antonio while the hatter combed the city looking for some sign of Penélope. He spent the days in his old room, which, as his father had promised, was unchanged, though now everything seemed smaller, as if objects had shrunk with time. Many of his old notebooks were still there, pencils he remembered sharpening the week he left for Paris, books waiting to be read, the boy’s clean clothes in the closets. The hatter told Julián that Sophie had left him shortly after his escape, and although for years he didn’t hear from her, she wrote to him at last from Bogotá, where she had been living for some time with another man. They corresponded regularly, “always talking about you,” the hatter admitted, “because it’s the only thing that binds us.” When he spoke those words, it seemed to Julián that the hatter had put off falling in love with his wife until after he had lost her.
“One loves truly only once in a lifetime, Julián, even if one isn’t aware of it.”
The hatter, who seemed caught up in a race against time to disentangle a whole life of misfortunes, had no doubt that Penélope was that love in his son’s life. Without realizing it, he thought that if he helped him recover her, perhaps he, too, would recover some part of what he had lost, that void that weighed on his bones like a curse.
Despite his determination, and much to his despair, the hatter soon discovered that there was no trace of Penélope Aldaya, or of her family, in the whole of Barcelona. A man of humble origins, who had had to work all his life to stay solvent, the hatter had never doubted the staying power of money and social station, but fifteen years of ruin and destitution had been sufficient to remove mansions, industries, and the very footprints of a dynasty from the face of the earth. When the name Aldaya was mentioned, there were many who had heard of it but very few who remembered its significance.
The day Miquel Moliner and I went to the hat shop and asked after Julián, the hatter was certain we were two of Fumero’s henchmen. But nobody was going
to snatch his son from him again. This time God Almighty could descend from the heavens, the same God who had ignored the hatter’s prayers all his life, and he would gladly pull out His eyes if He dared push Julián away again.
The hatter was the man whom the flower vendor remembered seeing a few days before, prowling around the Aldaya mansion. What the flower vendor interpreted as “pretty nasty” was only the intensity that comes to those who, better late than never, have found a purpose in life and try to make up for lost time. Unfortunately, the Lord once again disregarded the hatter’s pleadings. Having crossed the threshold of despair, the old man was still unable to find what he needed for his son’s salvation, for his own salvation: some sign of the girl. How many lost souls do You need, Lord, to satisfy Your hunger? the hatter asked. God, in His infinite silence, looked at him without blinking.
“I can’t find her, Julián…. I swear that—”
“Don’t worry, Father. This is something I must do. You’ve already helped me as much as you could.”
That night Julián at last went out into the streets of Barcelona, determined to find Penélope.
AS MIQUEL LISTENED TO HIS FRIEND’S TALE, IT DID NOT OCCUR TO HIM to be suspicious of the waiter when he went over to the telephone and mumbled something with his back to them or, later, when he surreptitiously kept an eye on the door, wiping glasses too thoroughly for an establishment where dirt was otherwise so at home. It didn’t occur to him that Fumero would already have been in that café, and in dozens of cafés like it, a stone’s throw away from the Aldaya mansion; that as soon as Carax set foot in any one of them, the call would be placed in a matter of seconds. When the police car stopped in front of the café and the waiter disappeared into the kitchen, Miquel felt the cold and serene stillness of fate. Carax read his eyes, and they both turned at the same time and saw the apparition: three gray raincoats flapping behind the windows, three faces blowing steam onto the windowpane. None of them was Fumero. The vultures preceded him.