The Labyrinth of the Spirits

by Carlos Ruiz Zafón

  Fermín went up to his friend and smiled at him weakly from the other side of the diesel drum. Daniel’s eyes shone in the light of the fire.

  “If what you’re trying to do is catch pneumonia,” ventured Fermín, “may I remind you that the North Pole is exactly in the opposite direction.”

  Daniel ignored his words and stood there, staring at the blaze as it devoured the pages, which shriveled among the flames as if an invisible hand were turning them one by one.

  “Bea must be worried, Daniel. Why don’t we go back?”

  Daniel looked up and gazed blankly at Fermín, as if he’d never seen him before.

  “Daniel?”

  “Where is it?” asked Daniel, in a cold voice that lacked all inflection.

  “Excuse me?”

  “The gun. What have you done with it, Fermín?”

  “I gave it to the Sisters of Charity.”

  A frozen smile surfaced on Daniel’s lips. Fermín, who had never felt so close to losing Daniel forever, stepped closer and put his arm around him. “Let’s go home, Daniel. Please.”

  At last Daniel nodded, and little by little, in complete silence, they made their way back.

  * * *

  Dawn was breaking when Bea heard the door of the apartment open and Daniel’s footsteps in the hall. She’d been sitting for hours in the dining-room armchair, a blanket over her shoulders. Daniel’s figure appeared in the corridor. If he saw her, he did nothing to show it. He walked past her and made his way to Julián’s bedroom, which was in the back, overlooking the small square by the church of Santa Ana. Bea stood up and followed him. She found Daniel in the bedroom doorway, gazing at the sleeping child.

  Bea put her hand on his shoulder. “Where were you?” she whispered.

  Daniel turned around and looked into her eyes.

  “When is all this going to end, Daniel?” she murmured.

  “Soon,” he said. “Soon.”

  Libera Me

  Madrid

  January 1960

  1

  In the gray, metallic dawn Ariadna faced the long avenue bordered by cypress trees. She held a bunch of red roses in her hand, which she’d bought on the way, by the entrance to a graveyard. There was complete silence. Not a single birdsong could be heard, no breeze dared caress the blanket of dead leaves covering the cobblestones. With no other company than the sound of her own footsteps, Ariadna covered the distance to the large spiked gates guarding the entrance to the estate, crowned with the words

  VILLA MERCEDES

  Mauricio Valls’s palace loomed behind an Arcadia of gardens and groves. Towers and dormers punctuated an ashen sky. Ariadna, a speck of white in the shade, studied the shape of the house that could be glimpsed between statues, hedges, and fountains. She thought it looked like a monstrous creature that had crept up, fatally wounded, to that corner of the forest. The gate was half open. Ariadna stepped in.

  As she walked, she noticed the railway tracks running through the gardens, circling the perimeter of the estate. A miniature train, with a steam engine and two cars, seemed to be stranded among the bushes. She kept walking along the paved path leading up to the main house. The fountains were dry, their stone angels and marble Madonnas blackened. The trees’ branches were covered in countless white chrysalises, now empty, like miniature tombs made of candy floss. A swarm of spiders hung from threads in the air. Ariadna crossed the bridge over the large oval swimming pool. Its water, greenish and covered in a fine layer of shiny algae, was strewn with the corpses of small birds, as if some curse had made them drop from the sky. Farther away were empty garages and staff buildings, buried in the shadows.

  Ariadna climbed the stairs leading to the front door. She knocked three times before realizing that it too was open. Looking back, she took in the atmosphere of ruin that permeated the estate: with the fall of the emperor and his privileges, the servants had fled the palace. Ariadna pushed open the door and stepped into the house. It already smelled of a graveyard, of oblivion. A velvety half-light tightly gripped the network of corridors and staircases opening up before her. She stood there, motionless, a white specter at the doors of purgatory, staring at the dead splendor with which Mauricio Valls had dressed up his days of glory.

  A faraway lament reached her ears. It came from the first floor and sounded like the feeble whine of a dying animal. She walked up the wide staircase unhurriedly. The walls hinted at the outlines of stolen paintings. On either side of the stairs were empty pedestals on which she could still make out the marks left by looted figures and busts. When Ariadna reached the first floor, she stopped and listened for the moaning again. It came from a room at the end of the corridor, which she headed slowly toward. The door was ajar, and a powerful stench wafted from it, brushing her face.

  Ariadna walked across the darkened room and approached a four-poster bed. In that light it looked like a funeral hearse. An arsenal of machines and instruments sat idly on one side of the bed, disconnected and pushed back against the wall. The carpet was strewn with rubble and abandoned oxygen tanks. Ariadna stepped over those objects and pulled back the veil surrounding the bed. Behind it she discovered a human figure twisted upon itself, as if its bones had turned to jelly and its whole anatomy had been recast by pain. The figure’s bloodshot eyes, enlarged on a skeletal face, observed her suspiciously. That guttural groan, halfway between weeping and suffocation, came out of her throat once more. Señora Valls had lost her hair, her nails, and most of her teeth.

  Ariadna gazed at her without compassion. She sat down on one side of the bed and leaned over her. “Where’s my sister?” she asked.

  Valls’s wife tried to form words. Ariadna ignored the stink she gave off and drew her face close to her lips.

  “Kill me,” she heard her plead.

  2

  Hidden in the dolls’ house, Mercedes saw the woman go through the villa’s gates. Dressed in ghostly white, she advanced very slowly in a straight line, carrying a bunch of red roses. Mercedes smiled. She’d been waiting for her for days. Death, dressed in Pertegaz couture, at last visited Villa Mercedes before hell swallowed it up, leaving in its place a barren land where grass would never grow again, where wind would never blow.

  She had climbed onto one of the windowsills in the dolls’ pavilion, where she’d been living since the staff abandoned the house, soon after the news of her father’s death. At first Doña Mariana, her father’s secretary, had tried to stop them, but that same evening some men dressed in black had come and dragged Doña Mariana away. Mercedes had heard gunshots behind the garages, but she didn’t want to go there and look. Over the next few nights they took away the paintings, the statues, the furniture, the clothes, the cutlery, and whatever else they fancied. They would arrive at sunset like a starving pack. They also took all the cars and destroyed the walls of the sitting rooms, looking for hidden treasures that they didn’t find. When there was nothing left, they went away and never returned.

  One day she saw two police cars come in. With them came some of the bodyguards she remembered from her father’s security staff. For a moment she hesitated, wondering whether to go out and meet them, tell them everything that had happened, but when she saw them go up to her father’s workroom in the tower and loot everything inside it, she hid again among the dolls. There, among hundreds of figures that looked into the void with glass eyes, nobody found her. They abandoned the lady of the house to her fate after disconnecting the machines that preserved her in her state of eternal torment. She’d been howling for days, but still hadn’t died. Until that day.

  That day Death was visiting Villa Mercedes, and soon Mercedes would have the ruins of the house all to herself. She knew that everyone had lied to her. She thought her father was alive and safe somewhere, and that as soon as he could, he’d return to her side. She knew, because Alicia had promised her. She had promised she would find her father.

  * * *

  When she saw Death walk up the stairs to the entrance of the house and
step inside, Mercedes became doubtful. Perhaps she was mistaken. Perhaps that white figure she had taken for the Grim Reaper was only Alicia, who had come back to fetch her and take her to her father. It was the only thing that made sense. She knew Alicia would never abandon her.

  She stepped out of the dolls’ pavilion and walked over to the main house. Inside, she heard footsteps on the first floor and ran up the stairs just in time to see the white figure go into the lady’s room. The stench filling the corridor was terrible. She covered her mouth and nose with her hand and walked up to the doorway. The figure in white was leaning like an angel over the lady’s bed. Mercedes held her breath. Then the figure took one of the pillows and, covering the lady’s face, pressed hard while her body shook with convulsions, until it lay still.

  The figure turned around slowly, and Mercedes was seized by the iciest cold she had ever felt. She was wrong. It wasn’t Alicia.

  Death, all dressed in white, approached her slowly and smiled. She offered Mercedes a red rose, which she accepted with trembling hands. “Do you know who I am?” she asked.

  Mercedes nodded. Death embraced her with immense affection and gentleness. The young girl let herself be caressed, containing her tears.

  “Shhh,” whispered Death. “Nobody is going to separate us ever again. Nobody will hurt us anymore. We’ll always be together. With Mommy and Daddy. Always together. You and I . . .”

  3

  Alicia woke up on the back seat of the taxi. She sat up and realized she was alone. The windows were steamed up. She wiped the pane with her sleeve and saw that they’d stopped at a gas station. A streetlamp projected a yellowish beam that vibrated every time a truck thundered past on the road. In the distance, a leaden dawn was spreading across the sky, sealing it without leaving a single crack. She rubbed her eyes and rolled down the window. A sudden gust of icy air pulled her out of her drowsiness. A stabbing pain ran through her hip. She let out a moan and held her side. Soon the pain subsided to a dull throb, a warning of what was to come. The wisest thing would have been to take a pill or two before the pain sharpened, but she wanted to stay alert. She had no other choice. After a few minutes, she saw the profile of the taxi driver emerging from the gas station bar, carrying two paper cups and a bag with greasy stains. He raised a hand to greet her and walked briskly around the car.

  “Good morning,” he said as he sat down at the wheel again. “It’s cold as hell out there. I’ve brought you some breakfast. More roadside delicacy than continental, but at least it’s hot. Coffee with milk and some deep-fried pastry sticks that looked good. I asked them to pour a bit of brandy into the coffee, to lift the spirits.”

  “Thanks. Let me know what I owe you.”

  “It’s all included in the fare, full board. Go on, eat a bit. It will do you good.”

  They had their breakfast in silence, inside the car. Alicia wasn’t hungry, but she knew she needed to eat. Every time another one of those heavy-duty trucks went by, the rearview mirror vibrated and the whole car shook.

  “Where are we?”

  “Ten kilometers outside Madrid. A couple of delivery-van drivers told me there are Civil Guard controls at most of the entrances of the main roads coming from the east, so I thought we could make a detour and go in through the Casa de Campo road or through Moncloa.”

  “And why would we do that?”

  “I don’t know. It just occurred to me that a Barcelona taxi entering Madrid at seven o’clock in the morning might attract attention. Because it’s yellow, that’s all. And we two make a bit of an odd couple, no offense. But you’re the boss.”

  Alicia finished her coffee in one gulp. The brandy burned like gasoline, but warmed her bones a little. The taxi driver was looking at her out of the corner of his eye. Alicia hadn’t paid much attention to him until then. He was younger than he seemed, with reddish hair and pale skin. His glasses were held together over the nose bridge with insulating tape, and he still looked like a teenager.

  “What’s your name?” asked Alicia.

  “Mine?”

  “No. The taxi’s.”

  “Ernesto. My name is Ernesto.”

  “Do you trust me, Ernesto?”

  “Are you trustworthy?”

  “Up to a point.”

  “I see. Do you mind if I ask you a rather personal question?” said the taxi driver. “You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.”

  “Fire ahead. What’s on your mind?”

  “That’s what’s on my mind, actually. Firing. Earlier, when we left Guadalajara, we took a sharp bend, and all the stuff in your bag ended up on the back seat. As you were asleep, I didn’t want to bother you, and I put it all back . . .”

  Alicia sighed, nodding. “And you saw that I’m carrying a gun.”

  “Well, yes. And it didn’t look much like a water pistol, although, quite frankly, I’m no expert on the subject.”

  “If that makes you feel more at ease, you can drop me off here. I’ll pay you what we agreed, and then I’ll ask one of your truck-driver friends in there to drive me up to Madrid. I’m sure one of them will agree.”

  “I haven’t the slightest doubt about that, but I wouldn’t feel too happy about it.”

  “Don’t worry about me. I can handle myself.”

  “No, I’m not worried about you. I’m worried about the truck drivers, to be honest. I’ll take you, which is what we’d agreed, and no more discussions.” Ernesto started the car and pressed both hands on the wheel. “Where are we going?”

  * * *

  They found a city shrouded in fog. A wave of mist crept over the towers and domes crowning the rooftops on Gran Vía. Veils of metallic steam wafted through the streets, wrapping themselves around cars and buses that were trying to advance with their headlights barely scratching the fog. The traffic moved forward slowly, blindly, and the figures of pedestrians on the pavements looked like frozen ghosts.

  When they drove past the Hotel Hispania, her official residence during those past years, Alicia looked up to gaze at what had been her window. They continued advancing through central Madrid under that shroud of darkness, until the silhouette of Neptune’s fountain rose before them.

  “Where now?” asked Ernesto.

  “Keep going until Lope de Vega, turn right, and then go up along Duque de Medinaceli, which is the first street.”

  “Weren’t you going to the Hotel Palace?”

  “We’re going to the back of the hotel. The kitchen entrance.”

  The taxi driver nodded and followed her instructions. The streets were almost deserted. The Gran Hotel Palace took up an entire block shaped like a trapezoid, a city in itself. He drove around the perimeter until they came to a corner where Alicia asked him to park behind a van from which men were unloading boxes with bread loaves, fruit, and other food supplies.

  Ernesto lowered his head to look up at the monumental facade.

  “Here you are. As promised,” she said.

  The driver turned around to find a wad of notes in Alicia’s hand. “Wouldn’t you rather I waited for you?”

  Alicia didn’t reply.

  “Because you are coming back, aren’t you?”

  “Take the money.”

  The driver hesitated.

  “You’re making me waste my time. Take the money.”

  Ernesto accepted his pay.

  “Count it.”

  “I trust you.”

  “It’s up to you.”

  Ernesto watched her as she pulled something out of her bag and then slipped it under her jacket. He was sure it wasn’t a lipstick.

  “Listen, I don’t like this. Why don’t we leave?”

  “You’re the one who’s leaving, Ernesto. As soon as I get out, return to Barcelona and forget you ever saw me.”

  The taxi driver felt his stomach shrink. Alicia put her hand on his shoulder, pressed it affectionately, and stepped out of the car. A few seconds later Ernesto saw her vanish into the Gran Hotel Palace.

  4<
br />
  The heart of the grand hotel was already working full tilt as it coped with the first breakfast sitting. An army of cooks, kitchen boys, and waiters came in and out of the kitchen areas and tunnels, pushing trolleys or carrying trays. Alicia edged around the commotion with its aroma of coffee and a thousand delights, receiving a few surprised looks, although everyone was too busy to focus on what was obviously a lost guest or, more likely, a luxury courtesan slipping out discreetly at the end of her work shift. Because of this code of invisibility that prevails in all luxury hotels, Alicia was able to play that card unabashed until she reached the service elevators. She stepped into the first one, which she shared with a maid carrying towels and bars of soap who looked her up and down with a mixture of curiosity and envy. Alicia gave her a friendly smile, as if to imply that they both walked on the same side of the street.

  “So early?” asked the maid.

  “Early bird catches the worm.”

  The maid nodded shyly. She got out on the fourth floor. When the doors closed and the elevator continued up to the last floor, Alicia pulled out the bunch of keys from her handbag and looked for the golden one Leandro had given her two years earlier. “It’s a master key. It opens all the rooms of the hotel. Including mine. Make good use of it. Never enter a place if you don’t know what awaits you.”