“It’s Sant Jordi. We’ll be late.”
“I’m sure Fermín has already opened the shop.”
“Fifteen minutes,” conceded Bea.
“Thirty,” replied Daniel.
They ended up with forty-five, give or take a minute.
* * *
Halfway through the morning, the streets began to liven up. A velvety sun and an electric blue sky draped the city, while thousands of citizens came out into the sunshine to stroll through hundreds of bookstalls set up along pavements and promenades. Señor Sempere had decided to place his stall opposite the bookshop, in the middle of Calle Santa Ana. A number of tables crammed with books displayed their wares in the sunshine. Behind the tables, helping readers, wrapping up books, or simply watching the crowds walk by, was the entire Sempere team. Fermín, who had rid himself of his raincoat, fronted the lineup in his shirtsleeves. Next to him stood Daniel and Bea, minding the accounts and the cash register.
“Where’s the promised deluge?” asked Daniel when he joined the ranks.
“On its way to Sicily, where they need it more. Hey, Daniel, you’re looking pretty roguish this morning. I guess spring is in the air . . .”
Señor Sempere, together with Don Anacleto—who always joined them as a support troop and was a deft hand at wrapping books—sat on chairs and recommended titles to the undecided. Sofía fired up young men who went over to the stall to check her out and ended up buying something. Next to her, Fernandito smoldered with jealousy and a little pride. Even the neighborhood watchmaker, Don Federico, and his occasional paramour, Merceditas, had come along to help.
The person who most enjoyed it all, however, was little Julián, who delighted in watching the parade of people carrying books and roses. Standing on a box next to his mother, he helped her count the coins while he polished off the Sugus reserves he’d found in the pockets of Fermín’s raincoat. At some point in the middle of the day, Daniel stood there, looking at him and smiling. Julián hadn’t seen his father in such a good mood for ages. Perhaps now that shadow of sadness that had followed him for so long would go away, just like those storm clouds that everyone was talking about and nobody had seen. Sometimes, when the gods aren’t looking and destiny loses its way, even good people get a taste of good luck in their lives.
3
Dressed in black from head to toe, her eyes hidden behind sunglasses that reflected a crowded Calle de Santa Ana disappearing into the distance, Alicia took a few steps forward. She sheltered under the arches of a front door and furtively observed the Sempere family as they sold books, chatted with passersby, and enjoyed that special day in a way she knew she never would.
She smiled when she saw Fermín snatch books from gullible readers and change them for others; when she saw Daniel and Bea brush against one another and exchange glances in a language that filled her with envy but that she knew she didn’t deserve; or Fernandito entranced with his Sofía, and Grandfather Sempere gazing at his family and friends with satisfaction. She would have liked to walk up to them and say hello. Tell them they no longer had anything to fear, and thank them for having let her enter their lives, even if just for a short time. She wanted, more than anything in the world, to be one of them, but taking that memory with her would be reward enough. She was about to leave when she encountered a look that made time stop.
Little Julián was staring at her, a sad smile on his face, as if he could read her thoughts. The boy raised a hand, waving good-bye. Alicia returned the gesture. A moment later, she had disappeared.
“Who are you waving to, sweetheart?” asked Bea when she saw her son looking hypnotized, his eyes riveted on the crowd.
Julián turned to look at his mother, and reached for her hand. Fermín had come over to stock up on the Sugus reserve, which he naively thought was still in his raincoat, and found his pockets empty. He’d turned to look at Julián, ready to raise hell, when he too noticed the boy’s expression and followed his enraptured glance.
* * *
Alicia.
Fermín felt her in her absence, with no need to see her, and blessed the heavens, or whoever had taken those clouds to other pastures, for having returned her to him one more time. Perhaps Bernarda was right after all, and in this lousy world, sometimes, some things did end the way they should.
He grabbed his raincoat and leaned toward Bea, who was just accepting payment for a whole set of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle books from a young boy with very thick glasses.
“Listen, boss, Junior here has cleared out my ammo, and my blood sugar has plunged to Russian Revolution levels. In view of the fact that everyone here, except for that halfwit Merceditas, is overqualified for the job at hand, I’m going off to see if I find some quality confectioner’s to top up my provisions. And while I’m out and about, I’ll buy a rose for Bernarda.”
“I have some roses reserved at the florists by the entrance to the church,” said Bea.
“What you don’t think of . . .”
Bea watched him hurry off and frowned.
“Where’s Fermín going?” asked Daniel.
“God knows . . .”
4
He found her at the far end of the docks, sitting on a suitcase. She was smoking in the sun, watching a crew loading trunks and boxes onto a liner that cast its whiteness over the waters of the port. He settled down next to her. They sat in silence for a while, enjoying each other’s company without having to say anything.
“Big suitcase,” he said at last. “And there was I thinking that of all women, you must be the only one who knows how to travel light.”
“It’s easier to leave bad memories behind than good shoes.”
“Well, as I’ve only got one pair . . .”
“You’re an ascetic.”
“Who collected them for you? Fernandito? The rascal, he’s certainly learning to keep things to himself.”
“I made him swear he wouldn’t say anything.”
“How did you bribe him? With a French kiss?”
“Fernandito only has kisses for Sofía, and so it should be. I’ve handed him the keys of the flat, so he can live there and sin at will.”
“We’ll leave that piece of information away from Señor Sempere’s ears. He’s the girl’s legal guardian.”
“Good idea.”
Alicia looked at him. Fermín became lost in those feline eyes, deep and unfathomable. A well of darkness. She took his hand and kissed it.
“Where on earth were you?” asked Fermín.
“Here and there. Tying up loose ends.”
“Around someone’s neck?”
Alicia proffered an icy smile. “There were things that had to be resolved. Stories to piece together. I’ve been doing my job.”
“I thought you’d retired.”
“I only wanted to leave my slate clean,” she said. “I don’t like leaving things unfinished.”
“And weren’t you going to come and say good-bye?”
“You know that I’m not one for farewells, Fermín.”
“It would have been good to know that you were still alive and in one piece.”
“Did you doubt it?”
“I had my moments of weakness. It’s age. One starts feeling uneasy, seeing the sharks circling. They call it composure.”
“I was going to send you a postcard.”
“Where from?”
“I haven’t decided yet.”
“I have a feeling this liner isn’t off to the Costa Brava.”
Alicia shook her head. “No. It’s going a bit further.”
“That’s what I thought. Seems like a very long ship to me. May I ask you a question?”
“So long as it has nothing to do with the journey’s end . . .”
“Is the Sempere family safe? Daniel, Bea, the granddad, Julián?”
“It is now.”
“And to what hell did you have to descend to make sure innocent people are able to live in peace, or at least in placid ignorance?”
&nb
sp; “To none that wasn’t already on my path, Fermín.”
“Those cigarettes smell good. They look expensive. Of course. You’ve always had a taste for fine, beautiful things. My tastes lie more on the ordinary side, and I like to watch my pennies.”
“Would you like one?”
“Why not? In the absence of Sugus, one must find a way to feed the monkey. The fact is, I haven’t smoked a cigarette since the war, when they were made out of butts and peed-on grass. I’m sure the product has improved.”
Alicia lit a cigarette and handed it to Fermín. He admired the lipstick mark on the filter before taking a drag.
“Are you going to tell me what really happened?”
“Do you really want to know, Fermín?”
“I have a condition that prompts me to want to know the truth at all times. You can’t imagine the amount of distress this ailment brings to those of us who could otherwise live so content in a state of blissful ignorance.”
“It’s a very long story, and I have a boat to catch.”
“You must have a bit of time left to enlighten a poor ignorant fool before weighing anchor.”
“Are you sure you want me to tell you?”
“I’m like that.”
For almost an hour, Alicia told him everything she could remember, from her days in the orphanage and on the streets to when she began to work at the orders of Leandro Montalvo. She told him about her years under Leandro, about how she’d ended up believing she’d lost her soul along the way, never suspecting it was hidden inside her, and about her refusal to continue working for him. “Valls’s case was supposed to be my passport to freedom, my last assignment.”
“But there never is such a thing, is there?”
“No, of course not. You’re only free up to the point where you ignore the truth.”
Alicia told him about the meeting at the Gran Hotel Palace with Gil de Partera, and the assignment she and Captain Vargas, her imposed work partner, had been given: to help uncover the pieces of an investigation that was going nowhere.
“My mistake was not to realize that the assignment was a deception. From the start. In fact, nobody wanted to save Valls. He’d made too many enemies. And too many blunders. He’d broken the rules of the game by abusing his privileges and endangering the safety of his accomplices. When the trail of his crimes turned back on him, they abandoned him. Valls thought there was a conspiracy to murder him, and he wasn’t altogether wrong. But he’d left so much blood on his path, he no longer knew where the bullet would come from. For years he thought the ghosts of his past had returned to get revenge on him—Salgado or his Prisoner of Heaven, David Martín, so many others . . . What he didn’t suspect was that those who really wanted to finish him off were the ones he thought were his friends and protectors. When you’re in power, nobody stabs you face-to-face, always in the back and with an embrace. Nobody at the top wanted to save him or find him. They just wanted to ensure that he would disappear, and that the trail of all the things he’d done would be permanently erased. There were too many hands implicated. Vargas and I were simply tools. That is why, in the end, we too had to disappear.”
“But my Alicia has more lives than a cat and was able to dodge the Grim Reaper once more . . .”
“By the skin of my teeth. I think I’ve already spent all the lives I had left, Fermín. It’s time I also left the stage.”
“May I tell you that I’ll miss you?”
“If you’re going to get sentimental on me, I’ll chuck you into the water.”
The ship sounded its horn, spreading its echo throughout the entire port. Alicia stood up.
“Can I help you with the suitcase? I promise to stay on dry land. Pleasure boating brings me bad memories.”
He went with her as far as the gangway, where the last passengers were already filing through. Alicia showed her ticket to the boatswain who, thanks to a generous tip, told a porter to carry the lady’s suitcase to her cabin.
“Will you come back to Barcelona one day? This city is bewitched, you know. It gets under your skin and never lets go . . .”
“You’ll have to look after her for me, Fermín. And Bea, and Daniel and Señor Sempere and Bernarda, and Fernandito and Sofía, and above all yourself and little Julián, who one day will make us all immortal.”
“I like that. The bit about being immortal, especially now that my bones are beginning to creak.”
Alicia put her arms tightly around Fermín and kissed him on the cheek. He knew she was crying, and didn’t want to look her in the face. Neither of them were going to lose their dignity just when they were about to get away with it.
“Don’t even think of standing here bidding me farewell from the dock,” warned Alicia.
“Don’t worry.”
Fermín lowered his eyes as Alicia’s footsteps disappeared up the gangway. He turned around without looking up and set off walking, his hands in his pockets.
He found Daniel at the end of the dock, sitting with his legs dangling over the edge. They exchanged glances, and Fermín sighed.
He sat down beside Daniel. “I thought I’d managed to give you the slip.”
“It’s that new cologne you drench yourself in. I could even trail you in the fish market. What did she tell you?”
“Alicia? Stories to keep one awake at night.”
“You might like to share them.”
“Some other day. I’m an expert when it comes to insomnia and I don’t recommend it.”
Daniel shrugged. “I think the advice comes a bit too late.”
The echo of a ship’s horn flooded the port. Daniel tipped his chin toward the liner as it cast off and began to pull away from the quayside. “Those are the ones that go to America.”
Fermín nodded.
“Fermín, do you remember, years ago, when we used to come and sit down here, and we’d solve the world’s problems?”
“That was when we thought they could still be solved.”
“I still think they can be.”
“Because deep down you’re still a kid, even if you shave now.”
They stayed there, watching the liner cutting through the reflection of the whole of Barcelona across the waters of the port, its wake of white foam breaking up the greatest mirage in the world. Fermín didn’t look away until the stern of the ship was lost in the sea mist that swept through the mouth of the port, escorted by a flock of seagulls.
Daniel gazed at him pensively. “Are you all right, Fermín?”
“As fierce as a bull.”
“Well, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you look so sad.”
“That’s because you need to have your eyes checked.”
Daniel didn’t insist. “What do you say? Shall we get going? What if I treat you to a few glasses of bubbly at the Xampanyet, just like old times?”
“Thanks, Daniel, but I think I’ll say no today.”
“Don’t you remember? Life is waiting for us . . .”
Fermín smiled, and for the first time, Daniel realized that his old friend didn’t have a single hair on his head that wasn’t gray.
“It’s waiting for you, Daniel. Memories are all I have waiting for me.”
Daniel pressed his arm affectionately and left him alone with his memories and his conscience.
“Don’t be long,” he said.
1964
Every time his son Nicolás asked him how one became a good journalist, Sergio Vilajuana replied with the same maxim: “A good journalist is like an elephant: he has a good nose, good ears, and above all, he never forgets.”
“What about the tusks?”
“He’s got to take care of those, because there’s always some well-armed individual who wants to take them from him.”
That morning, like every other morning, Vilajuana had taken his youngest son to school before heading for the editing room of La Vanguardia. The stroll helped him to sort out his ideas before delving into the maelstrom of the newsroom to battle with the topics of
the day. On arriving at the newspaper’s headquarters on Calle Pelayo, he came across Jenaro, an office boy who for the last fifteen years had been trying to persuade the editor to admit him into the sports section as an unpaid trainee, a maneuver by which he hoped to be allowed into the president’s box at the Barcelona Soccer Club, the great ambition of his life.
“That will be the day you learn to read and write, Jenaro,” the editor in chief, Mariano Carolo, would always say. “Miracles don’t happen even in Lourdes, and at this rate, unless you go there to mop the floor, they won’t even let you into the box to watch a children’s qualifying round.”
As soon as he saw him come through the door, Jenaro went up to Vilajuana with a serious expression.
“Señor Vilajuana, the censor from the ministry is waiting for you,” he murmured.
“Again? Have these people nothing better to do?”
Vilajuana peered into the newsroom from the doorway and located the unmistakeable silhouette of his favorite censor, a slick-haired individual with a pear-shaped body who was standing guard by his desk.
“Ah, by the way, a parcel came for you,” said Jenaro. “I don’t think it’s a bomb, because it fell on the floor and we’re still in one piece.”
Vilajuana picked up the parcel and decided to do a U-turn and avoid the censor’s visit. The man was a bore. He’d been trying for weeks to corral Vilajuana and tell him off about an article he’d written on the Marx brothers that, the censor argued, constituted an apologia for an international Communist conspiracy.
* * *
He walked over to a bar in the darkest corner of Calle Tallers, nicknamed the Filthy Arms by the journalists, cabaret artistes, and assorted fauna native to the northern tip of the Raval quarter who frequented it. After ordering a coffee, he took cover at a table in the far back, where not a single ray of sunlight had ever penetrated. He sat down and examined the parcel. It was a padded envelope, reinforced with wrapping tape and addressed to him at La Vanguardia. The stamp, half erased by the vagaries of the post, was from the United States of America. The sender’s address simply read:
The Labyrinth of the Spirits Page 76