‘Stay there,’ he ordered.
I ignored his words and advanced towards the entrance to the chamber.
‘Dear God . . .’ I heard Florián whisper.
I found it hard to breathe. It was impossible to accept the sight that lay before our eyes. Trapped in the darkness, hanging from rusty hooks, were dozens of bodies, lifeless and incomplete. Two large tables were covered in a chaotic mess of strange tools: bits of metal, cogs and mechanisms made of wood and steel. A glass cabinet on the wall held a collection of phials, a set of hypodermic syringes and a mass of dirty, blackened surgical instruments.
‘What in hell is this?’ muttered Florián, visibly scared.
On one of the tables lay a sinister figure made of wood, leather, metal and bone, like an unfinished toy: a boy with round snake-like eyes and a forked tongue showing through black lips. Branded onto the boy’s forehead, the butterfly symbol was clearly visible.
‘It’s his workshop . . . This is where he creates them . . .’ I let slip audibly.
And then the eyes of that hellish doll moved. It turned its head. Its guts made a clicking sound like a clock being set. I felt its black reptilian pupils settling on mine. The forked tongue licked the doll’s lips. It was smiling at us.
‘Let’s get out of here,’ said Florián. ‘Now!’
We rushed back into the chamber and closed the metal door behind us. Florián was breathing with difficulty. I couldn’t even speak. He took the torch from my shaking hands and inspected the tunnel. As he did so, I saw a drop fall through the beam of light. And another, and yet another. Bright scarlet drops. Blood. We stared at each other in silence. Something was dripping from the ceiling. Florián signalled to me to move back a few steps and pointed the light up. I saw Florián’s face grow pale and his firm hand start to shake.
‘Run,’ was all he said to me. ‘Get out of here!’
He raised the revolver after casting me one last look. In his eyes I saw first terror and then the realisation of certain death. He opened his lips to say something else, but no sound ever emerged from his mouth. A dark figure hurled itself at Florián, striking him before he was able to move a single muscle. I heard a gunshot, a deafening explosion that bounced off the walls. The torch ended up in a stream of water. Florián’s body was flung against the wall with such force that it made an indent the shape of a cross in the blackened tiles. I was sure he was dead before he peeled off the wall and fell inert on the floor.
I started to run, looking desperately for the way back. An animal howl inundated the tunnels. I turned around. About a dozen figures were crawling from every direction. I ran as I’d never run in my life, listening to the invisible pack howling behind my back, stumbling as I ran with the image of Florián’s body embedded in the wall still fixed in my mind.
I was nearing the exit when a figure leaped out before me, just a few metres ahead, barring me from the steps to the street. I stopped dead in my tracks. The light filtering through from above revealed the face of a harlequin. Two diamond shapes covered its glassy eyes, and steel fangs protruded from its lips of polished wood. I took a step back. Two hands rested on my shoulders. Nails tore my clothes. Something viscous and cold surrounded my neck. I felt the knot tightening, choking me. My sight began to fail. Then something grabbed me by the ankles. The harlequin knelt down in front of me and stretched its hands towards my face. I thought I was going to pass out. I prayed for that to happen. A second later the head made of wood, leather and metal burst into pieces.
The shot came from my right. The explosion drilled through my eardrums and the smell of gunpowder filled the air. The harlequin collapsed at my feet. I heard a second gunshot. The pressure on my throat had gone and I fell flat on my face. I was only aware of the intense smell of the gunpowder. Then I noticed that someone was pulling me; I opened my eyes and I thought I could see a man leaning over and lifting me up.
Suddenly I saw daylight and my lungs filled with clean air. Then I lost consciousness. I remember dreaming about the sound of horses’ hoofs while bells rang endlessly.
CHAPTER 21
THE ROOM IN WHICH I AWOKE LOOKED FAMILIAR. The windows were closed and a bright light seeped through the shutters. A figure stood by my side, quietly watching me. Marina.
‘Welcome to the world of the living.’
I sat up with a jerk. Suddenly my vision was blurred and I felt as if needles of ice were boring through my skull. Marina held me while the pain gradually abated.
‘Careful . . .’ she whispered.
‘How did I get here?’
‘Someone brought you at dawn. In a carriage. He didn’t say who he was.’
‘Claret,’ I murmured as the pieces began to fall into place in my mind.
It was Claret who had got me out of the tunnels and had brought me back to the Sarriá mansion. I realised that I owed him my life.
‘You gave me one hell of a fright. Where have you been? I’ve spent all night waiting for you. Don’t ever do anything like that to me again, do you hear?’
My entire body ached, even moving my head to nod. Marina brought a glass of cold water to my lips. I drank it in one go.
‘You want more?’
I closed my eyes and heard her pouring another glassful.
‘Where’s Germán?’
‘In his studio. He was worried about you. I told him something you ate didn’t agree with you.’
‘He believed you?’
‘My father believes everything I tell him,’ said Marina with no malice.
She handed me the glass of water.
‘What does he do in his studio for hours on end if he no longer paints?’
Marina held my wrist and felt my pulse.
‘My father is an artist,’ she said after a minute. ‘Artists live in the future or in the past, rarely in the present. Germán lives from his memories. It’s all he’s got.’
‘He’s got you.’
‘I’m his biggest memory,’ she said, looking straight into my eyes. ‘I’ve brought you something to eat. You’ve got to get your strength back.’
I waved a hand in refusal. The very idea of eating made me feel sick. Marina put a hand round the back of my neck and supported me while I drank again. The clean cold water tasted like a blessing.
‘What’s the time?’
‘It’s mid-afternoon. You’ve slept for almost eight hours.’
She placed a hand on my forehead and left it there for a few seconds.
‘At least your fever has gone.’
I opened my eyes and smiled. Marina looked pale as she gazed at me.
‘You were delirious. You were talking in your sleep . . .’
‘What did I say?
‘Nonsense.’
I felt my throat. It hurt.
‘Don’t touch it,’ said Marina, pulling my hand away. ‘You’ve got quite a wound on your neck. And cuts on your shoulders and back. Who did this to you?’
‘I don’t know.’
Marina sighed impatiently.
‘You scared me to death. I didn’t know what to do. I went to a telephone booth to call Florián, but I was told by the barman that you’d just called and the inspector had left without saying where he was going. I rang again shortly before daybreak and he still hadn’t returned.’
‘Florián is dead.’ I noticed my voice breaking as I mentioned the poor inspector’s name. ‘Last night I returned to the cemetery—’ I began.
‘You’re mad,’ Marina interrupted.
She was probably right. Without a word, she offered me a third glass of water. I gulped it down. Afterwards I slowly recounted what had happened the night before. When I finished my account, Marina just stared at me in silence. It seemed as if there was something else worrying her, something that had nothing to do with what I’d told her. She urged me to eat what she’d brought for me, whether I was hungry or not. She offered me some bread and chocolate and didn’t take her eyes off me until I’d swallowed almost half a chocolate bar and a
roll the size of a taxi. The sugar rush soon revived me.
‘While you slept, I’ve also been playing detective,’ said Marina, pointing to a thick leather-bound volume on the bedside table.
I read the title on the spine.
‘Are you interested in entomology?’
‘Bugs,’ Marina clarified. ‘I’ve found our friend, the black butterfly.’
‘Teufel . . .’
‘An adorable creature. It lives in tunnels and basements, far from the light. It has a life cycle of fourteen days. Before dying, it buries its body among rubble and, three days later, a new larva emerges from it.’
‘It resurrects?’
‘That’s one way of putting it.’
‘And what does it feed on?’ I asked. ‘There aren’t any flowers or pollen in tunnels . . .’
‘It feeds off its young,’ Marina explained. ‘It’s all there. The exemplary lives of our cousins the insects.’
Marina walked over to the window and drew back the curtains. Sunlight flooded the room. She stayed there, looking pensive. I could almost hear the cogs turning in her head.
‘What’s the point of attacking you to recover the photograph album only to abandon it later?’
‘Probably whoever attacked me was looking for something specific in the album.’
‘But whatever that was, it wasn’t there any more . . .’ Marina added.
‘Dr Shelley . . .’ I said, suddenly remembering.
Marina looked at me questioningly.
‘When we went to see him, we showed him the picture in which he appeared in the surgery,’ I said.
‘And he kept it!’
‘Not only that. As we were leaving I saw him throw it into the fire.’
‘Why would Shelley destroy that photograph?’
‘Perhaps it revealed something he didn’t want anyone to see . . .’ I suggested, jumping out of bed.
‘Where do you think you’re going?’
‘To see Lluís Claret,’ I replied. ‘He’s the person who holds the key to all this business.’
‘You’re not leaving this house for the next twenty-four hours,’ Marina objected, leaning against the door. ‘Inspector Florián gave his life so that you could have a chance to escape.’
‘In twenty-four hours whatever is hiding in those tunnels will have come to get us – unless we do something to stop it,’ I said. ‘The least Florián deserves is that we do him justice.’
‘Shelley said death cares little about justice,’ Marina reminded me. ‘Maybe he was right.’
‘Maybe,’ I admitted. ‘But we care.’
As we approached the Raval quarter, mist spread through the alleyways, tinted by the lights from shabby dives and taverns. We’d left behind the friendly bustle of the Ramblas. Soon there wasn’t a tourist or any other casual pedestrian in sight. Furtive glances followed us from stinking doorways, from windows cut into crumbling façades. The echo of voices and old radios rose through these canyons of poverty, but only as far as the rooftops. The voice of the Raval never reaches heaven.
Soon, through gaps between grime-covered buildings, we caught sight of the dark monumental outline of the Gran Teatro Real ruins. Crowning the very top of the skylight dome, silhouetted against the sky, was a weather vane in the shape of a black-winged butterfly. We stopped to stare at the ghostly sight. What had once been the most fantastic building ever erected in Barcelona was now decomposing like a corpse floating in a swamp.
Marina pointed at the lit-up windows on the third floor of the adjoining building. I recognised the entrance to the stables. That was Claret’s home. We walked up to the main door. The bottom of the stairwell was still flooded after last night’s downpour. We began to climb the worn dark steps.
‘What if he won’t see us?’ asked Marina anxiously.
‘He’s probably waiting for us,’ it occurred to me.
When we reached the second floor I noticed that Marina was breathing heavily and with difficulty. I stopped and saw that she was turning pale.
‘Are you all right?’
‘A bit tired,’ she replied with an unconvincing smile. ‘You walk too fast for me.’
I took her hand and helped her up to the third floor, a step at a time. We stopped outside Claret’s door. Marina took a deep breath. Her chest trembled as she did so.
‘I’m all right, really,’ she said, guessing at my fears. ‘Go on. Knock. You haven’t brought me all the way here just to show me round the district, I hope.’
I rapped on the door. The wood was old, solid and as thick as a wall. I knocked again. We heard slow steps approaching. The door opened and Lluís Claret, the man who had saved my life, greeted us with an inscrutable stare.
‘Come in,’ was all he said, turning back into the flat.
We closed the door behind us. The apartment was dark and cold. Paint peeled off the ceiling in yellowish flakes. Lampshades with no light bulbs were festooned with spider’s nests and patterned tiles under our feet were cracked.
‘This way,’ Claret called out from inside the flat.
We followed his voice to a room whose only source of light came from a small brazier. Claret was sitting by the burning coals, staring silently at them. The walls were covered with old portraits: people and faces from a bygone age. Claret looked up at us. His eyes were pale and penetrating, his hair silvery and his complexion like parchment. Dozens of lines marked the passing of time on his face, but despite his advanced age he exuded an air of strength that many men thirty years younger would have envied. He looked like a music-hall star who had grown old in the sun with dignity and style.
‘I didn’t get the chance to thank you. For saving my life.’
‘It’s not me you have to thank. Can I ask how you found me?’
‘Inspector Florián told us about you,’ Marina butted in. ‘He explained that you and Dr Shelley were the only two people who remained close to Mijail Kolvenik and Eva Irinova to the very end. He said you never abandoned them. How did you meet Mijail Kolvenik?’
A faint smile crossed Claret’s lips.
‘Señor Kolvenik came to this town during one of the worst cold spells of the century,’ he explained. ‘Alone, hungry and beset by the icy weather, he sheltered for a night in the doorway of an old building. All he had was a few coins to buy a bit of bread and some hot coffee. Nothing else. While he was considering what to do, he discovered that there was someone else in the doorway. A boy of about five, wrapped in rags, a beggar who had taken shelter there just as he had. Kolvenik and the boy didn’t speak the same language so they could barely understand one another. But Kolvenik smiled at him and gave him all the money he had, making gestures to indicate that he should use it to buy food. Not quite believing his good luck, the child ran off to buy a large loaf of bread from a bakery that was open all night, next to Plaza Real. He returned to the doorway to share the bread with the stranger but saw the police leading him away. In prison Kolvenik’s cellmates beat him up savagely. During the days when he was in the prison hospital the boy waited by the door like a dog that had lost its master. When Kolvenik emerged into the streets two weeks later, he was limping. The boy was there to hold him up. He became his guide and swore he would never abandon the man who, on the worst night of his life, had given him all his worldly possessions . . . I was that boy.’
Claret stood up and told us to follow him to a door at the end of a narrow passage. He pulled out a key and opened it. On the other side was an identical door and between the two a small chamber.
To mitigate the darkness Claret lit a candle. Then, with another key, he opened the second door. A sudden draught invaded the passageway, making the candle hiss. I felt Marina clutch my hand as we stepped through. There we stopped. A fabulous vision opened up before us: the interior of the Gran Teatro Real.
Tier upon tier rose towards the huge dome. Velvet curtains hung from the boxes, fluttering in the void. Above a vast expanse of empty stalls, large glass chandeliers still awaited the electricit
y connection that had never materialised. We were standing in a side entrance to the stage. Above us the stage machinery seemed to rise to infinity, a universe of curtains, scaffolding, pulleys and walkways lost in the heights.
‘This way,’ said Claret, leading us.
We crossed the stage. A few musical instruments languished in the orchestra pit. On the conductor’s podium a score lay open at the first page, buried under cobwebs. Further back, the long carpet covering the central aisle looked like a road to nowhere. Claret walked on ahead of us, towards a door with a light shining behind it, and signalled to us to wait there a moment. Marina and I looked at one another.
It was the door to a dressing room. Hundreds of dazzling costumes hung from metal rails. One wall was covered in mirrors framed with lights. The other was taken up by dozens of old photographs of an extraordinarily beautiful woman: Eva Irinova, the woman who had entranced her audiences, the woman for whom Mijail Kolvenik had built this sanctuary.
And then I saw her.
The lady in black was gazing at herself in silence, her veiled face looking into the mirror. When she heard our footsteps, she turned slowly and nodded her head. At this signal Claret allowed us to come closer. We walked towards her as if we were approaching an apparition, with a mixture of fear and fascination. We stopped a couple of metres away. Claret stayed in the doorway, on the alert. The woman faced the mirror again, studying her image.
Suddenly, with the utmost care, she lifted her veil. The few light bulbs that were working showed us her face in the mirror, or what the acid had left of it. Naked bone and wrinkled skin. Shapeless lips, just a slit on the blurry features. Eyes that could no longer cry. For an endless moment she let us see the horror that was usually covered by her veil. Afterwards, just as gently as she had revealed her face and her identity, she covered it up again and motioned for us to sit down. A long silence ensued.
Eva Irinova stretched out a hand towards Marina’s face and stroked it, moving over her cheeks, her lips and her neck, reading her beauty and her perfection with trembling, yearning fingers. Marina swallowed hard. The lady drew away her hand and I could see her lidless eyes flashing behind the veil. Only then did she start to speak and tell us the story she had been hiding for over thirty years.