A gust of putrid air burst from within, impregnating my clothes and my skin. I picked up the lamp and entered. The room was a rectangle about five or six meters deep. The walls were covered with pictures and inscriptions that looked as if they had been made with someone’s fingers. The lines were brownish and dark. Dried blood. The floor was covered with what at first I thought was dust but, when I lowered the lamp, turned out to be the remains of small bones. Animal bones broken up into a layer of ash. Numerous objects hung from a piece of black string suspended from the ceiling. I recognized religious figures, images of saints, Madonnas with their faces burned and their eyes pulled out, crucifixes knotted with barbed wire, and the remains of tin toys and dolls with glass eyes. The silhouette was at the far end, almost invisible.
A chair facing the corner. On the chair I saw a figure. It was dressed in black. A man. His hands were cuffed behind his back. Thick wire bound his arms and legs to the frame. An icy coldness took hold of me.
“Salvador?”
I advanced slowly toward him. The figure did not move. I paused a step away and stretched out my hand. My fingers skimmed over the man’s hair and rested on his shoulder. I wanted to turn his body round but felt something give way under my fingers. A second later I thought I heard a whisper and the corpse crumbled into dust that spilled through his clothes and the wire bonds, then rose in a dark cloud that remained suspended between the walls of the prison where for years this man’s body had remained hidden. I looked at the film of ash on my hands and brought them to my face, spreading the remains of Ricardo Salvador’s soul on my skin. When I opened my eyes I saw that Diego Marlasca, his jailer, was waiting in the doorway, with the boss’s manuscript in his hand and fire in his eyes.
“I’ve been reading it while I waited for you, Martín,” said Marlasca. “A masterpiece. The boss will know how to reward me when I give it to him on your behalf. I admit that I was never able to solve the puzzle. I fell by the wayside. I’m glad to see the boss found a more talented successor.”
He put the manuscript on the floor.
“Get out of my way.”
“I’m sorry, Martín. Believe me. I’m sorry. I was starting to like you,” he said, pulling out what looked like an ivory handle from his pocket. “But I can’t let you out of this room. It’s time for you to take the place of poor Salvador.”
He pressed a button on the handle and a double-edged blade shone in the gloom.
He threw himself at me, shouting angrily. The blade sliced my cheek open and would have gouged out my left eye if I hadn’t jumped to one side. I fell backwards onto the bones and dust covering the floor. Marlasca grabbed the knife with both hands and crashed down on top of me, putting all his weight on the blade. The knifepoint stopped only centimeters from my chest, while my right hand held Marlasca’s throat.
He twisted to bite me on the wrist and I punched him hard in the face with my free hand. He seemed barely to flinch, driven by an anger that went beyond reason and pain, and I knew he wouldn’t let me out of that cell alive. He charged at me with incredible strength. I felt the tip of the knife cut through my skin. I hit him again as hard as I could. My fist collided with his face and I heard the bones of his nose crack. Marlasca gave another shout, ignoring the pain, and plunged the knife into my flesh. A sharp pain seared through my chest. I hit him once more, searching out his eye sockets with my fingertips, but Marlasca raised his chin and I could only dig my nails into his cheek. This time I felt his teeth on my fingers.
I shoved my fist into his mouth, splitting his lips and knocking out a few teeth. I heard him howl and then he hesitated for a second before coming at me again. I pushed him to one side and he fell to the floor, dropping the knife, his face a mask of blood. I stepped away from him, praying that he wouldn’t get up again. A moment later he had crawled over to the knife and was getting to his feet.
He grasped the blade and threw himself on me again with a deafening shriek, but this time he didn’t catch me by surprise. I reached for the handle of the lamp and swung it at him with all my might. The lamp smashed against his face, spreading oil over his eyes, his lips, his throat, and his chest. It caught fire immediately. In just a few seconds a blanket of flames covered his entire body. His hair shriveled. I saw a look of hatred through the tongues of fire that were devouring his eyelids. I picked up the manuscript and fled.
Marlasca still held the knife in his hands as he tried to follow me out of that accursed room and fell facedown on the pile of old clothes, which burst into flames. The fire leaped at the wood of the wardrobe and the furniture that was piled up against the wall. I rushed toward the corridor but still he pursued me, arms outstretched, trying to catch me. As I reached the door I twisted round and saw Diego Marlasca being consumed by the blaze, furiously punching the walls, which caught alight at his touch. The fire spread to the books scattered in the gallery and then the curtains. It writhed across the ceiling like bright orange snakes, licking the frames of doors and windows, creeping up the steps to the study. The last image I recall is of a doomed man falling to his knees at the end of the corridor, the vain hopes of his madness lost and his body reduced to a human torch by a storm of flames that spread relentlessly through the tower house. I opened the front door and ran down the stairs.
Some of the neighbors had assembled in the street when they saw the first flames in the windows of the tower. Nobody noticed me as I slipped away. Shortly afterwards, I heard the windowpanes in the study shatter. I turned to see the fire embracing the dragon-shaped weather vane. Soon I was making my way toward Paseo del Borne, walking against a tide of local residents who were all staring upwards, their eyes captivated by the brightness of the pyre that rose into the black sky.
25
That night I returned, for the last time, to the Sempere & Sons bookshop. The CLOSED sign was hanging on the door, but as I drew closer I noticed that there was still a light on inside and that Isabella was standing behind the counter, alone, engrossed in a thick accounts ledger. Judging from the expression on her face, it predicted the end of the old bookshop’s days. But as I watched her nibbling the end of her pencil and scratching the tip of her nose with her forefinger, I was certain that as long as she was there the place would never disappear. Her presence would save it, as it had saved me. I didn’t dare disturb that moment so I stayed where I was, smiling to myself, watching her unawares. Suddenly, as if she’d sensed my presence, she looked up and saw me. I waved at her and saw that despite herself her eyes were filled with tears. She closed the book and came running out from behind the counter to open the door. She was staring at me as if she couldn’t quite believe I was there.
“That man said you’d run away. He said we’d never see you again.”
I assumed Grandes had paid her a visit before he died.
“I want you to know that I didn’t believe a word of what he told me,” said Isabella. “Let me call—”
“I don’t have much time, Isabella.”
She looked at me, crestfallen.
“You’re leaving, aren’t you?”
I nodded. Isabella gulped nervously.
“I told you I don’t like farewells.”
“I like them even less. That’s why I haven’t come to say good-bye. I’ve come to return a couple of things that don’t belong to me.”
I pulled out the copy of The Steps of Heaven and handed it to her.
“This should never have left the glass case containing Señor Sempere’s personal collection.”
Isabella took it and when she saw the bullet still trapped in its pages she looked at me in silence. I pulled out the white envelope that held the fifteen thousand pesetas with which old Vidal had tried to buy my death and left it on the counter.
“And this goes toward all the books that Sempere gave me over the years.”
Isabella opened it and counted the money in astonishment.
“I don’t know whether I can accept it …”
“Consider it my wedding present
, in advance.”
“And there was I, still hoping you’d lead me to the altar one day, even if only to give me away.”
“Nothing would have pleased me more.”
“But you have to go.”
“Yes.”
“Forever.”
“For a while.”
“What if I come with you?”
I kissed her on the forehead, then hugged her.
“Wherever I go, you’ll always be with me, Isabella. Always.”
“I have no intention of missing you.”
“I know.”
“Can I at least come with you to the train or whatever?”
I hesitated too long to refuse those last few minutes of her company.
“To make sure you’re really going and I’ve finally got rid of you,” she added.
“It’s a deal.”
We strolled down the Ramblas, Isabella’s arm in mine. When we reached Calle Arco del Teatro, we crossed over toward the dark alleyway that ran deep into the Raval quarter.
“Isabella, you mustn’t tell anyone what you’re about to see tonight.”
“Not even Sempere junior?”
I sighed.
“Of course you can tell him. You can tell him everything. We can hardly keep any secrets from him.”
…
When the doors opened, Isaac, the keeper, smiled at us and stepped aside.
“It’s about time we had an important visit,” he said, bowing to Isabella. “Am I right in supposing you’d rather be the guide, Martín?”
“If you don’t mind …”
Isaac stretched out his hand and I shook it.
“Good luck,” he said.
The keeper withdrew into the shadows, leaving me alone with Isabella. My ex-assistant—now the new manager of Sempere & Sons—observed everything with a mixture of astonishment and apprehension.
“What sort of a place is this?” she asked.
I took her hand and led her the remaining distance to the large hall that housed the entrance.
“Welcome to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, Isabella.”
Isabella looked up toward the glass dome and became lost in that impossible vision of white rays of light that crisscrossed a babel of tunnels, footbridges, and bridges, all leading into a cathedral made of books.
“This place is a mystery. A sanctuary. Every book, every volume you see, has a soul. The soul of the person who wrote it and the soul of those who read it and lived and dreamed with it. Every time a book changes hands, every time someone runs his eyes down its pages, its spirit grows and strengthens. In this place, books no longer remembered by anyone, books that are lost in time, live forever, waiting for the day when they will reach a new reader’s hands, a new spirit …”
…
Later I left Isabella waiting by the entrance to the labyrinth and set off alone through the tunnels, clutching that accursed manuscript I had not had the courage to destroy. I hoped my feet would guide me to the place where I was to bury it forever. I turned a thousand corners until I thought I was lost. Then, when I was convinced I’d followed the same path a dozen times, I discovered I was standing at the entrance to the small chamber where I’d seen my reflection in the mirror in which the eyes of the man in black were ever-present. I found a gap between two spines of black leather and there, without thinking twice, I buried the boss’s folder. I was about to leave the chamber when I turned and went back to the shelf. I picked up the volume next to the slot in which I had confined the manuscript and opened it. I’d only read a couple of sentences when I heard that dark laughter again behind me. I returned the book to its place and picked another at random, flicking through the pages. I took another, then another, and went on in this way until I had examined dozens of the volumes that populated the room. They all contained different arrangements of the same words, the same images darkened their pages, the same fable was repeated in them like a pas de deux in an infinite hall of mirrors. Lux Aeterna.
…
When I emerged from the labyrinth Isabella was waiting for me, sitting on some steps, holding the book she had chosen. I sat down next to her and she leaned her head on my shoulder.
“Thank you for bringing me here,” she said.
I suddenly understood that I would never see that place again, that I was condemned to dream about it and to sculpt what I remembered of it into my memory, considering myself lucky to have been able to walk through its passages and touch its secrets. I closed my eyes for a moment so that the image might become engraved in my mind. Then, without daring to look back, I took Isabella’s hand and made my way toward the exit, leaving the Cemetery of Forgotten Books behind me forever.
…
Isabella came with me to the dock, where the ship was waiting to take me far away from that city, from everything I knew.
“What did you say the captain was called?”
“Charon.”
“I don’t think that’s funny.”
I hugged her for the last time and looked into her eyes. On the way we had agreed there would be no farewells, no solemn words, no promises to fulfill. When the midnight bells rang in Santa María del Mar, I went on board. Captain Olmo greeted me and offered to take me to my cabin. I said I would rather wait. The crew cast off and gradually the hull moved away from the dock. I positioned myself at the stern, watching the city fade in a tide of lights. Isabella remained there, motionless, her eyes fixed on mine, until the dock was lost in the night and the great mirage of Barcelona sank into the black waters. One by one the lights of the city went out, and I realized that I had already begun to remember.
Fifteen long years have passed since the night I fled the city of the damned. For a long time mine has been an existence filled with absences, with no other name or presence than that of a traveling stranger. I’ve had a hundred names and a hundred trades, none of them my own.
I have disappeared into huge cities and villages so small that nobody had a past or a future. In no place did I linger more than was necessary. Sooner rather than later I would flee again, without warning, leaving behind me only a couple of old books and secondhand clothes in somber rooms where time showed no pity and memory burned. Uncertainty has been my only recollection. The years have taught me to live in the body of a stranger who does not know whether he committed those crimes he can still smell on his hands or whether he has indeed lost his mind and is condemned to roam a world in flames that he dreamed up in exchange for a few coins and the promise of evading a death that now seems to him like the sweetest of rewards. I have often asked myself whether the bullet that Inspector Grandes fired at my heart went right through the pages of the book, whether I was the one who died in the cabin suspended in the sky.
During my years of pilgrimage I’ve seen how the inferno promised in the pages I wrote for the boss has taken on a life of its own. I have fled from my own shadow a thousand times, always looking over my shoulder, always expecting to find it round a corner, on the other side of the street or at the foot of my bed in the endless hours before dawn. I’ve never allowed anyone to know me long enough to ask why I never grow old, why no lines appear on my face, why my reflection is the same as the night I left Isabella in the port of Barcelona, and not a minute older.
There came a time when I believed I had exhausted all the hiding places of the world. I was so tired of being afraid, of living and dying from my memories, that I stopped where the land ended and an ocean began—an ocean that, like me, looks the same every morning—and, worn out, I collapsed.
It is a year to the day since I came to this place and recovered my name and my trade. I bought this old hut on the beach, just a shed that I share with the books left behind by the previous owner and a typewriter that I like to think might be the same one on which I wrote hundreds of pages that perhaps nobody remembers—I will never know. From my window I see a small wooden jetty that stretches out into the sea and, moored at the end, the boat that came with the house, a simple rowboat in which I som
etimes go out as far as the reef, at which point the coast almost disappears from view.
I had not written again until I got here. The first time I slipped a page into the typewriter and placed my hands on the keyboard, I was afraid I’d be unable to write a single line. I began writing this story during my first night in the hut. I wrote until dawn, just as I did years ago, without yet knowing whom I was writing it for. During the day I walked along the beach or sat on the jetty opposite the hut—a gangway between sky and sea—reading through the piles of old newspapers I found in one of the cupboards. Their pages brought me stories of the war, of the world in flames that I had dreamed up for the boss.
It was while I was reading those chronicles about the war in Spain, and then in Europe and the rest of the world, that I decided I no longer had anything to lose; all I wanted to know was whether Isabella was all right and if perhaps she still remembered me. Or maybe I only wanted to know whether she was still alive. I wrote a letter, addressed to the old Sempere & Sons bookshop in Calle Santa Ana in Barcelona, that would take weeks or months to arrive at its destination, if it ever did arrive. For the sender’s name I wrote Mr. Rochester, knowing that if the letter did reach her hands, Isabella would know whom it was from. If she wished, she could leave it unopened and forget me forever.
For months I continued writing this story. I saw my father’s face again, and I walked through the offices of The Voice of Industry, dreaming that I might be able, one day, to emulate the great Pedro Vidal. Once more I saw Cristina Sagnier for the first time, and I went into the tower house to dive into the madness that had consumed Diego Marlasca. I wrote from midnight until dawn without resting, feeling alive for the first time since I had fled from the city.
The reply arrived one day in June. The postman had slipped the envelope under my door while I slept. It was addressed to Mr. Rochester and the return address read simply: Sempere & Sons Bookshop, Barcelona. For a few minutes I walked in circles round the hut, not daring to open it. Finally I went out and sat by the edge of the sea. In the letter I found a single page and a second, smaller, envelope. The second envelope, which looked worn, just had my name on it, David, in a handwriting I had not forgotten despite all the years that had flowed by since I last saw it.
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