‘This is a bit on the dead side,’ I suggested, aware of the irony.
‘Patience is the mother of all virtues,’ she responded.
‘And the godmother of madness,’ I replied. ‘There’s nothing here. Nothing at all.’
Marina gave me a look I could not fathom.
‘You’re wrong,’ she said. ‘The memories of hundreds of people lie here. Their lives, their feelings, their expectations, their absence, the dreams that never came true for them, the disappointments, the deceptions and the unrequited loves that poisoned their existence . . . All that is here, trapped for ever.’
I observed her, feeling both intrigued and rather uncomfortable, although I wasn’t quite sure what she was getting at. Whatever it was, it mattered to her.
‘Nothing in life can be understood until you understand death,’ Marina added.
I tried to look as if I fully captured the morbid subtlety of it all – whatever it was she was talking about. Unsuccessfully, if her blank stare was any indication.
‘To be honest, I don’t often think about that sort of thing,’ I admitted. ‘I mean, about death. Not seriously at least . . .’
Marina shook her head like a doctor who recognises the symptoms of an incurable disease.
‘In other words, you’re one of those poor naive little simpletons . . .’ she remarked knowingly.
‘Naive?’
Now I was really lost. One hundred per cent.
Marina’s eyes wandered and her face took on a serious expression that made her look older. I was hypnotised by her.
‘I don’t suppose you’ve heard of the legend,’ she began.
‘The legend?’
‘I thought so,’ she pronounced. ‘Well, you see, they say death has messengers who roam the streets in search of dimwits and numbskulls, people who never think about such things.’
At this point she fixed her pupils on mine.
‘When one of those unfortunate souls runs into a messenger of death, as he inevitably will sooner or later,’ Marina continued, ‘he is led unwittingly into a trap. A door into hell. These messengers cover their faces to conceal the fact that they don’t have eyes, only two black holes full of live worms. When it’s too late for any possible escape, the messenger reveals his face and the victim realises the horror that awaits him . . .’
Her words seemed to hang in the air while my stomach tightened.
Only then did Marina let slip that malicious smile. A cat’s smile.
‘You’re pulling my leg,’ I said at last.
‘Obviously.’
Five or ten minutes went by in silence, perhaps more. An eternity. A light breeze caressed the cypress trees. Two white doves fluttered about between the tombs. An ant was climbing up my trouser leg. Very little else was happening. Soon one of my legs started to fall asleep and I feared my head would follow suit. I was about to protest when Marina raised a hand, signalling me to be quiet before I’d even said a word. She pointed towards the cemetery entrance.
Someone had just come in. The someone in question seemed to be a woman, wrapped in a black velvet cloak with a hood covering her face. Her hands were crossed over her chest and she wore gloves, also black. The cloak was so long you couldn’t see her feet. From where we sat it looked as if the faceless figure were gliding along without touching the ground. For some reason I felt a shiver.
‘Who . . .?’ I whispered.
‘Shhh . . .’ warned Marina.
Hiding behind the columns of the long platform on which we were sitting, we spied on the lady in black. She was advancing through the graves carrying a red rose between her gloved fingers: it looked like a fresh knife wound. The woman walked over to a tombstone just beneath our observation point and stopped with her back to us. For the first time I noticed that, unlike all the other graves, this one had no name on it. All I could see was a shape engraved on the marble: a symbol that looked like an insect, a black butterfly with open wings.
The lady in black stood silently at the foot of the grave for almost five minutes. Finally she leaned forward, left the red rose on the tombstone and walked away slowly, just as she had come. Like an apparition.
Marina looked at me nervously and drew closer to whisper something. When her lips touched my ear I felt a tingling on the nape of my neck, like a centipede dancing the bossa nova.
‘I discovered her by chance three months ago,’ Marina explained, ‘when I came here with Germán to lay flowers on his aunt Reme’s grave . . . This lady comes here on the last Sunday of every month at ten o’clock in the morning and every time she leaves an identical rose on that grave. She always wears the same cloak, gloves and hood. And she always comes alone. You never see her face. She never speaks to anyone.’
‘Who is buried there?’ The strange symbol engraved on the tombstone intrigued me.
‘I don’t know. There’s no name for it in the cemetery registry . . .’
‘And who is that lady?’
Marina was about to reply when she glimpsed the lady’s figure disappearing through the cemetery gates. She took my hand and rose hurriedly.
‘Quick. Or we’ll lose her.’
‘Are we going to follow her?’ I asked.
‘You wanted action, didn’t you?’ she said, halfway between pity and irritation, as if I were even dumber than I looked.
By the time we reached Calle Doctor Roux, the woman in black was heading for the Bonanova area. It was raining softly again, although the sun seemed unwilling to hide. We followed the lady through that curtain of golden tears, crossing Paseo de la Bonanova and walking up towards the lower slopes of the hills, past mansions and small palaces that had known better times. The lady made her way into the web of deserted streets, which were blanketed with shiny leaves like scales shed by a giant serpent. Then she stopped at a crossroads, not moving, a living statue.
‘She’s seen us . . .’ I whispered, hiding with Marina behind a thick tree trunk carved with initials.
For a moment I was afraid she was going to spin round and notice us. But no. After a while she took a left turn and disappeared. Marina and I glanced at one another and resumed our pursuit. The trail led us to a narrow cul-de-sac crossed by the open section of the railway line that climbed up to the hilltop village of Vallvidrera. We stopped there. There was no sign of the woman in black, although we’d seen her enter the alleyway. The turrets of my boarding school could be glimpsed in the distance, high above roofs and treetops.
‘She must have gone into her home,’ I said. ‘She must live around here . . .’
‘No. These houses are all deserted. Nobody lives here.’
Marina pointed to the façades hidden behind iron gates and walls. All that remained standing were a couple of abandoned warehouses and a large old stately residence that looked as if a fire had raged inside it decades ago. The lady had vanished before our very eyes.
We ventured further up the alley. On the ground a puddle reflected the sky; raindrops distorted our reflections. At the end of the narrow lane a wooden gate swung to and fro in the breeze. Marina looked at me but didn’t say anything. We approached it quietly and I leaned over to have a quick look. The gate, set in a red-brick wall, gave onto a courtyard. What had once been a garden was now entirely choked by weeds. Peering through the undergrowth, we could just about make out the front of an odd-looking building covered in ivy. It took me a few seconds to realise I was staring at a greenhouse built on a metal frame. The plants hissed, like a swarm of bees lying in wait.
‘You first,’ said Marina waving me in.
I plucked up some courage and stepped into the mass of weeds. Without warning, Marina took my hand and followed me. As my feet sank into a blanket of rotting vegetation, I had a fleeting vision of dark snakes coiling around my ankles. We pressed ahead through a jungle of sharp branches, getting scratched in the process, until we came to a clearing in front of the greenhouse. Marina let go of my hand to gaze at the building. The ivy had spread like a cobweb over the whol
e structure, making it look like a palace submerged in a deep lake.
‘I’m afraid she’s given us the slip,’ I said. ‘No one has set foot in here for years.’
Marina agreed with me reluctantly. She took one last look at the greenhouse. She seemed disappointed but didn’t say anything else. ‘Silent defeats taste better,’ I thought.
‘Come on, let’s go,’ I suggested, offering her my hand in the hope that she would take it again for our walk back through the undergrowth.
Marina ignored me, frowned and started to walk around the greenhouse. I sighed and followed her half-heartedly. That girl was as stubborn as a mule.
‘Marina,’ I began. ‘Not here . . .’
I found her at the back of the building, facing what looked like the entrance. She turned towards me, then raised a hand to touch the glass pane and wipe off the dirt that covered an inscription. I recognised the same black butterfly I’d seen on the anonymous grave in the cemetery. Marina placed her hand on it. Slowly, the door opened. A foul sweet odour issued from within, like the stench of poisoned reservoirs and wells. Ignoring what little common sense I had left, I stepped into the darkness.
CHAPTER 5
THE GHOSTLY AROMA OF PERFUME AND OLD WOOD wafted through the air. The unpaved floor oozed with moisture. Plumes of vapour danced up and the resulting condensation dripped down in warm drops that you could feel and hear but barely see. A strange sound throbbed in the darkness. A metallic murmur, like the sound of a Venetian blind quivering.
Marina kept advancing slowly. It was hot and damp. My clothes were clinging to me and beads of sweat covered my forehead. I turned to look at Marina and in the half-light saw that the same was happening to her. That eerie sound was still stirring in the shadows. It seemed to come from every corner.
‘What is that?’ whispered Marina, a pang of fear in her voice.
I shrugged. We moved further into the greenhouse, stopping at a point where a few shafts of light filtered down from the dome. Marina was about to say something when again we heard that weird rattling. Close to us, about two metres away. Directly above our heads. We exchanged glances and slowly raised our eyes to look at a shadowy area in the roof of the glasshouse. I felt Marina’s hand clasp mine tightly. She was trembling. We were both trembling.
We were surrounded by angular figures dangling in the void. I could see a dozen of them, perhaps more. Legs, arms, hands and eyes shining in the dark. A whole pack of lifeless bodies swung over us. When they brushed against one another they produced that soft metallic sound. We took a step back, and before we knew what was happening Marina had caught her ankle on a lever connected to a pulley system. The lever gave way. In a tenth of a second the army of frozen figures dropped into the space below. I threw myself over Marina to protect her and we both fell flat on our faces. The whole place shuddered violently and I could hear the roar of the old glass structure as it vibrated. I was afraid that the glass panes would shatter and a rain of shards would skewer us to the ground. Just then something cold touched the back of my neck. Fingers.
I opened my eyes. A face was smiling at me. Bright yellow eyes flashed. They were lifeless. Glass eyes in a face carved out of lacquered wood. I heard Marina stifle a scream next to me.
‘They’re dolls,’ I said, almost breathless.
We stood up to have a closer look at the beings. Dummies. Figures made out of wood, metal and clay suspended from hundreds of cables attached to a piece of stage machinery. The lever Marina had unwittingly activated had released the pulley mechanism holding them up. They had stopped falling about half a metre from the ground and looked like hanged men performing a gruesome dance.
‘What the hell . . .?’ cried Marina.
I studied the group of dolls. One figure was dressed as a magician, another as a policeman; there was a dancer, an elegant lady in a maroon gown, a strongman . . . They were all built to human scale and wore luxurious fancy-dress costumes which time had turned to rags. But something bound them together, lending them a strange quality that betrayed their common source.
‘They’re unfinished,’ I discovered.
Marina immediately understood what I meant. Each one of those beings lacked something. The policeman had no arms. The ballerina no eyes, only two empty sockets. The magician had no mouth, or hands . . . We stared at the figures as they swung in the spectral light. Marina approached the ballerina, observing her carefully. She pointed to a small mark on her forehead, just beneath the doll’s hairline. The black butterfly again. Marina reached out to touch it, and as she did so her fingers brushed against the doll’s hair. She pulled her hand back in disgust.
‘The hair . . . it’s real,’ she said.
‘Impossible.’
We examined each of the sinister marionettes and found the same mark on all of them. I activated the lever and the pulleys began hoisting the bodies up again. As they rose, limply, I thought they looked like mechanical souls about to join their maker.
‘There seems to be something over there,’ said Marina behind me.
She was pointing at an old desk in one corner of the greenhouse. A fine layer of dust covered its surface. A spider scurried over it, leaving a trail of minute footprints. I knelt down and blew the dust off the table, making it swirl into a grey cloud. On the desk was a leather-bound book, open at the middle. An old sepia-coloured photograph had been glued to the page, with the caption ‘Arles, 1903’ in neat handwriting below. The picture showed a pair of conjoined twin girls, connected at the torso. Dressed in all their finery, the two sisters gave the camera the saddest smile in the world.
Marina turned the pages. The book was an ordinary photo album, but there was nothing ordinary about the old images it contained. The picture of the conjoined twins was just the beginning. As Marina’s fingers turned page after page she gazed at the photographs with a mixture of fascination and repulsion. I had a quick look and felt a strange chill down my spine.
‘Freaks of nature . . .’ murmured Marina. ‘Human beings with deformities who used to be banished to the circus . . .’
The disturbing power of those images hit me like a whiplash. The cruel side of nature was displaying its monstrous face: innocent souls imprisoned within bodies that were horribly deformed. For a few minutes we leafed through the pages of that album without uttering a word. One by one, the photographs showed us what I can only describe as nightmarish creatures. But such physical abominations didn’t mask the expressions of grief, horror and loneliness burning in those faces.
‘My God . . .’ whispered Marina.
The photographs were all identified by the year and the place they were taken. Buenos Aires, 1893. Bombay, 1911. Turin, 1930. Prague, 1933 . . . I found it difficult to understand who would have made such a collection, or why. A catalogue straight out of hell. At last Marina looked away from the book and walked off into the shadows. I tried to do the same but felt incapable of detaching myself from the pain and the horror conveyed by those pictures. If I lived a thousand years I’d still remember the faces of each one of those poor souls. I closed the book and turned towards Marina. I heard her sigh in the gloom and I felt useless, not knowing what to do or say. The images had distressed her profoundly.
‘Are you all right . . .?’ I asked.
Marina nodded, her eyes half closed. Suddenly something made a noise. I scanned the blanket of shadows enveloping us. Again I heard that strange sound. Hostile. Evil. Then I noticed the stench of rot, nauseating and powerful. It came from the darkness like the breath of a wild animal. I realised we were not alone. There was someone else there. Watching us. Marina stared at the wall of blackness, petrified. I took her hand and led her towards the doorway.
CHAPTER 6
WHEN WE EMERGED, A LIGHT RAIN HAD COATED the streets with silver. It was one o’clock. We began walking back without exchanging a single word. Germán was expecting us for lunch at the house.
‘Don’t mention any of this to Germán, please,’ Marina begged me.
??
?Don’t worry.’
I realised that in any case I wouldn’t have known how to explain what had happened. As we continued on our way, the memory of the photographs and everything we’d seen in that macabre greenhouse began to fade. When we reached Plaza Sarriá, I noticed that Marina was pale and seemed out of breath.
‘Are you feeling OK?’ I asked.
Marina said she was, rather unconvincingly. We sat down on a bench in the square. She took a few deep breaths, her eyes closed. A flock of pigeons scuttled around our feet. For a moment I thought Marina was going to faint. Then she opened her eyes again and smiled at me.
‘Don’t worry. I’m just a bit dizzy. It must have been that smell.’
‘Probably. There must have been a dead animal. A rat or . . .’
Marina agreed with my theory. After a while the colour came back to her cheeks.
‘What I need to do is eat something. Come on. Germán will be tired of waiting for us.’
We got up and made our way back to the house. Kafka was sitting expectantly by the gate. The cat gave me a spiteful look and ran over to rub his back against Marina’s ankles. I was weighing up the pros and cons of being a cat when I recognised that heavenly voice on Germán’s gramophone. The music flowed through the garden like a high tide.
‘What is that music?’
‘Léo Delibes,’ Marina replied.
‘No idea.’
‘Delibes. A French composer,’ Marina explained, perceiving my ignorance. ‘What do they teach you at school?’
I shrugged.
‘It’s a piece from one of his operas. Lakmé.’