Having said that, he feigned absentmindedness and wandered into the back room, smiling from ear to ear. I looked at my watch. It was ten-thirty in the morning. I had arranged to meet Bea at five in the university cloister, and, to my dismay, the day was turning out to be longer than The Brothers Karamazov.
Fermin soon returned from the watchmaker's home and informed us that a commando team of local women had set up a permanent guard to attend to poor Don Federico, whom the doctor had diagnosed as having three broken ribs, a large number of bruises, and an uncommonly severe rectal tear.
'Did you have to buy anything?' asked my father.
'They had enough medicines and ointments to open a pharmacy, so I took the liberty of buying him some flowers, a bottle of cologne, and three jars of peach juice - Don Federico's favourite.'
'You did the right thing. Let me know what I owe you,' said my father. 'And how did you find him?'
'Beaten to a pulp, quite frankly. Just to see him huddled up in his bed like a ball of wool, moaning that he wanted to die, made me want to kill someone, believe me. I feel like showing up at the offices of the Crime Squad and bumping off half a dozen of those pricks with a blunderbuss, beginning with that stinking ball of pus, Fumero.'
'Fermin, let's have some peace and quiet. I strictly forbid you to do anything of the sort.'
'Whatever you say, Senor Sempere.'
'And how has Pepita taken it?'
'With exemplary courage. The neighbours have doped her with shots of brandy, and when I saw her, she had collapsed onto the sofa and was snoring like a boar and letting off farts that bored bullet-holes through the upholstery.'
'True to character. Fermin, I'm going to ask you to look after the shop today; I'm going round to Don Federico's for a while. Later I've arranged to meet Barcelo. And Daniel has things to do.'
I raised my eyes just in time to catch Fermin and my father exchanging meaningful looks.
'What a couple of matchmakers,' I said. They were still laughing at me when I walked out through the door.
A cold, piercing breeze swept the streets, scattering strips of mist in its path. The steely sun snatched copper reflections from the roofs and belfries of the Gothic quarter. There were still some hours to go until my appointment with Bea in the university cloister, so I decided to try my luck and call on Nuria Monfort, hoping she was still living at the address provided by her father sometime ago.
Plaza de San Felipe Neri is like a small breathing space in the maze of streets that crisscross the Gothic quarter, hidden behind the old Roman walls. The holes left by machine-gun fire during the war pockmark the church walls. That morning a group of children played soldiers, oblivious to the memory of the stones. A young woman, her hair streaked with silver, watched them from the bench where she sat with an open book on her lap and an absent smile. The address showed that Nuria Monfort lived in a building by the entrance to the square. The year of its construction was still visible on the blackened stone arch that crowned the front door: 1801. Once I was in the hallway, there was just enough light to make out the shadowy chamber from which a staircase twisted upwards in an erratic spiral. I inspected the beehive of brass letterboxes. The names of the tenants appeared on pieces of yellowed card inserted in slots, as was common in those days.
Miquel Moliner I Nuria Monfort 3--2.a I went up slowly, almost fearing that the building would collapse if I were to tread firmly on those tiny doll's-house steps. There were two doors on every landing, with no number or sign. When I reached the third floor, I chose one at random and rapped on it with my knuckles. The staircase smelled of damp, of old stone, and of clay. I rapped a few times but got no answer. I decided to try my luck with the other door. I knocked with my fist three times. Inside the apartment I could hear a radio blaring the pious daily broadcast, Moments for Reflection with Father Martin Calzado.
The door was opened by a woman in a padded turquoise-blue checked dressing gown, slippers, and a helmet of curlers. In that dim light, she looked like a deep-sea diver. Behind her the velvety voice of Father Martin Calzado was devoting some words to the sponsors of the programme, a brand of beauty products called Aurorin, much favoured by pilgrims to the sanctuary of Lourdes and with miraculous properties when it came to pustules and warts.
'Good afternoon. I'm looking for Senora Monfort.'
'Nurieta? You've got the wrong door, young man. It's the one opposite.'
'I'm so sorry. It's just that I knocked and there was no answer.'
'You're not a debt collector, are you?' asked the neighbour suddenly, suspicious from experience.
'No. Senora Monfort's father sent me.'
'Ah, all right. Nurieta must be down below, reading. Didn't you see her when you came up?'
When I got to the bottom of the stairs, I saw that the woman with the silvery hair and the book in her hands was still fixed on her bench in the square. I observed her carefully. Nuria Monfort was a beautiful woman, with the sort of features that graced fashion magazines or studio portraits, but a woman whose youth seemed to be ebbing away in the sadness of her eyes. There was something of her father in her slightness of build. I imagined she must be in her early forties, judging from the grey hair and the lines that aged her face. In a soft light, she would have seemed ten years younger.
'Senora Monfort?'
She looked at me as though waking up from a trance, without seeing me.
'My name is Daniel. Your father gave me your address sometime ago. He said you might be able to talk to me about Julian Carax.'
When she heard those words, her dreamy look left her. I had a feeling that mentioning her father had not been a good idea.
'What is it you want?' she asked suspiciously.
I felt that if I didn't gain her trust at that very moment, I would have blown my one chance. The only card I could play was to tell the truth.
'Please let me explain. Eight years ago, almost by chance, I found a novel by Julian Carax in the Cemetery of Forgotten Books. You had hidden it there to save it from being destroyed by a man who calls himself Lain Coubert,' I said.
She stared at me, without moving, as if she were afraid that the world around her was going to fall apart.
'I'll only take a few minutes of your time,' I added. 'I promise.' She nodded, with a look of resignation. 'How's my father?' she asked, avoiding my eyes.
'He's well. He's aged a little. And he misses you a lot.' Nuria Monfort let out a sigh I couldn't decipher. 'You'd better come up to the apartment. I don't want to talk about this in the street.'
20.
Nuria Montford lived adrift in shadows. A narrow corridor led to a dining room that also served as kitchen, library, and office. On the way, I noticed a modest bedroom, with no windows. That was all, other than a tiny bathroom with no shower or tub out of which all kinds of odours emanated, from smells of cooking from the bar below to a musty stench of pipes and drains that dated from the turn of the century. The entire apartment was sunk in perpetual gloom, like a block of darkness propped up between peeling walls. It smelled of black tobacco, cold, and absence. Nuria Monfort observed me while I pretended not to notice the precarious condition of her home.
'I go down to the street because there's hardly any light in the apartment,' she said. 'My husband has promised to give me a reading lamp when he comes back.'
'Is your husband away?'
'Miquel is in prison.'
'I'm sorry, I didn't know. . . .'
'You couldn't have known. I'm not ashamed of telling you, because he isn't a criminal. This last time they took him away for printing leaflets for the metalworkers' union. That was two years ago. The neighbours think he's in America, travelling. My father doesn't know either, and I wouldn't like him to find out.'
'Don't worry. He won't find out through me,' I said.
A tense silence wove itself around us, and I imagined she was considering whether I was a spy sent by Isaac.
'It must be hard to run a house on your own,' I said stupidly, just to fill the void.
'It's not easy. I get what money I can from translations, but with a husband in prison, that's not nearly enough. The lawyers have bled me dry, and I'm up to my neck in debt. Translating is almost as badly paid as writing.'
She looked at me as if she was expecting an answer. I just smiled meekly. 'You translate books?'
'Not anymore. Now I've started to translate forms, contracts and customs documents - that pays much better. You only get a pittance for translating literature, though a bit more than for writing it, it's true. The residents' association has already tried to throw me out a couple of times. The least of their worries is that I'm behind with the maintenance fees. You can imagine, a woman who speaks foreign languages and wears trousers. . . . More than one neighbour has accused me of running a house of ill repute. I should be so lucky. . . .'
I hoped the darkness would hide my blushing.
'I'm sorry. I don't know why I'm telling you all this. I'm embarrassing you.'
'It's my fault. I asked.'
She laughed nervously. She seemed surrounded by a burning aura of loneliness.
'You remind me a bit of Julian,' she said suddenly. 'The way you look, and your gestures. He used to do what you are doing now. He would stare at you without saying a word, and you wouldn't know what he was thinking, and so, like an idiot, you'd tell him things it would have been better to keep to yourself. . . . Can I offer you anything? A cup of coffee maybe?'
'Nothing, thanks. I don't want to trouble you.'
'It's no trouble. I was about to make one for myself.'
Something told me that that cup of coffee was all she was having for lunch. I refused again and watched her walk over to a corner of the dining room where there was a small electric stove.
'Make yourself comfortable,' she said, her back to me.
I looked around and asked myself how. Nuria Monfort's office consisted of a desk that took up the corner next to the balcony, an Underwood typewriter with an oil lamp beside it, and a shelf full of dictionaries and manuals. There were no family photos, but the wall by the desk was covered with postcards, all of them pictures of a bridge I remembered seeing somewhere but couldn't pinpoint; perhaps Paris or Rome. Beneath this display the desk betrayed an almost obsessive neatness and order. The pencils were sharpened and perfectly lined up. The papers and folders were arranged and placed in three symmetrical rows. When I turned around, I realized that Nuria Montfort was gazing at me from the entrance to the corridor. She regarded me in silence, the way one looks at strangers in the street or in the subway. She lit a cigarette and stayed where she was, her face masked by spirals of blue smoke. I suddenly thought that, despite herself, Nuria Montfort exuded a certain air of the femme fatale, like those women in the movies who dazzled Fermin when they materialized out of the mist of a Berlin station, enveloped in halos of light, the sort of beautiful women whose own appearance bored them.
'There's not much to tell,' she began. 'I met Julian over twenty years ago, in Paris. At that time I was working for Cabestany, the publishing house. Senor Cabestany had acquired the rights to Julian's novels for peanuts. At first I worked in the accounts department, but when Cabestany found out that I spoke French, Italian, and a little German, he moved me to the purchasing department, and I became his personal secretary. One of my jobs was to correspond with foreign authors and publishers with whom our firm had business, and that's how I came into contact with Julian Carax.'
'Your father told me you two were good friends.'
'My father probably told you we had a fling, or something along those lines, right? According to him, I run after anything in trousers, like a bitch on heat.'
That woman's frankness and her brazen manner left me speechless. I took too long to come up with an acceptable reply. By then Nuria Montfort was smiling to herself and shaking her head.
'Pay no attention to him. My father got that idea from a trip to Paris I once had to make, back in 1933, to resolve some matters between Senor Cabestany and Gallimard. I spent a week in the city and stayed in Julian's apartment for the simple reason that Cabestany preferred to save on hotel expenses. Very romantic, as you can see. Until then my relationship with Julian Carax had been conducted strictly by letter, normally dealing with copyright, proofs, or editorial matters. What I knew about him, or imagined, had come from reading the manuscripts he sent us.'
'Did he tell you anything about his life in Paris?'
'No. Julian didn't like talking about his books or about himself. I didn't think he was happy in Paris. Though he gave the impression that he was one of those people who cannot be happy anywhere. The truth is, I never got to know him well. He wouldn't let you. He was a very private person, and sometimes it seemed to me that he was no longer interested in the world or in other people. Senor Cabestany thought he was shy and perhaps a bit crazy, but I got the feeling that Julian was living in the past, locked in his memories. Julian lived within himself, for his books and inside them - a comfortable prison of his own design.'
'You say this as if you envied him.'
'There are worse prisons than words, Daniel.'
I nodded, not quite sure what she meant.
'Did Julian ever talk about those memories, about his years in Barcelona?'
'Very little. During the week I stayed with him in Paris, he told me a bit about his family. His mother was French, a music teacher. His father had a hat shop or something like that. I know he was a very religious man, and very strict.'
'Did Julian explain to you what sort of a relationship he had with him?'
'I know they didn't get on at all. It was something that went back a long time. In fact, the reason Julian went to Paris was to avoid being put into the army by his father. His mother had promised him she would take him as far away as possible from that man, rather than let that happen.'
'But "that" man was his father, after all'
Nuria Monfort smiled. It was just a hint of a smile, and her eyes shone weary and sad.
'Even if he was, he never behaved like one, and Julian never considered him as such. Once he confessed to me that before getting married, his mother had had an affair with a stranger whose name she never revealed to him. That man was Julian's real father.'
'It sounds like the beginning of The Shadow of the Wind. Do you think he told you the truth?'
Nuria Monfort nodded. 'Julian told me he had grown up watching how the hatter - that's what he called him - insulted and beat his mother. Then he would go into Julian's room and tell him he was the son of sin, that he had inherited his mother's weak and despicable character and would be miserable all his life, a failure at whatever he tried to do. . . .'
'Did Julian feel resentful towards his father?'
'Time is a great healer. I never felt that Julian hated him. Perhaps that would have been better. I got the impression that he lost all respect for the hatter as a result of all those scenes. Julian spoke about it as if it didn't matter to him, as if it were part of a past he had left behind, but these things are never forgotten. The words with which a child's heart is poisoned, whether through malice or through ignorance, remain branded in his memory, and sooner or later they burn his soul.'
I wondered whether she was talking from experience, and the image of my friend Tomas Aguilar came to my mind once more, listening stoically to the diatribes of his haughty father.
'How old was Julian when his father started speaking to him like that?'
'About eight or ten, I imagine.'
I sighed.
'As soon as he was old enough to join the army, his mother took him to Paris. I don't think they even said goodbye. The hatter could never accept that his family had abandoned him.'
'Did you ever hear Julian mention a girl called Penelope?'
'Penelope? I don't think so. I'd remember.'
'She was a girlfriend of his, from the time when he still lived in Barcelona.'
I pulled out the photograph of Carax and Penelope Aldaya and handed it to her. I noticed how a smile lit up her face when she saw an adolescent Julian Carax. Nostalgia and loss were consuming her.
'He looks so young here. ... Is this the Penelope you mentioned?'
I nodded.
'Very good-looking. Julian always managed to be surrounded by pretty women.'
Like you, I thought. 'Do you know whether he had lots. . . ?'
That smile again, at my expense. 'Girlfriends? Lovers? I don't know. To tell you the truth, I never heard him speak about any woman in his life. Once, just to needle him, I asked him. You must know that he earned his living playing the piano in a hostess bar. I asked him whether he wasn't tempted, surrounded all day by beautiful women of easy virtue. He didn't find the joke funny. He replied that he had no right to love anyone, that he deserved to be alone.'
'Did he say why?'
'Julian never said why.'
'Even so, in the end, shortly before returning to Barcelona in 1936, Julian Carax was going to get married.'
'So they say.'
'Do you doubt it?'