'Of course not. I won't tell anyone.'
She laughed nervously. 'I don't know what came over me. Don't be offended, but sometimes it's easier to talk to a stranger than someone you know. Why is that?'
I shrugged. 'Probably because a stranger sees us the way we are, not as they wish us to be.'
'Is that also from your friend Carax?'
'No, I just made it up to impress you.'
'And how do you see me?'
'As a mystery.'
'That's the strangest compliment anyone has ever paid me.'
'It's not a compliment. It's a threat.'
'What do you mean?'
'Mysteries must be solved, one must find out what they hide.'
'You might be disappointed when you see what's inside.'
'I might be surprised. And you, too.'
'Tomas never told me you had so much cheek.'
'That's because what little I have, I've reserved entirely for you.'
'Why?'
Because I'm afraid of you, I thought.
We sought refuge in a small cafe next to the Poliorama Theatre. Withdrawing to a table by the window, we asked for some serrano ham sandwiches and a couple of white coffees, to warm up. Soon thereafter the manager, a scrawny fellow with the face of an imp, came up to the table with an attentive expression.
'Did you folks ask for the 'am sandwiches?'
We nodded.
'Sorry to 'ave to announce, on behalf of the management 'ere, that there's not a scrap of 'am left. I can offer black, white, or mixed butifarra, meatballs, or chistorra. Top of the line, extra fresh. I also 'ave pickled sardines, if you folks can't consume meat products for reasons of religious conscience. It being Friday. . .'
'I'll be fine with a white coffee, really,' said Bea.
I was starving. 'What if you bring two servings of spicy potatoes and some bread, too?'
'Right away, sir. And please, pardon the shortness of supplies. Usually I tend to 'ave everything, even Bolshevik caviar. But s'after-noon, it being the European Cup semi-final, we've had a lot of customers. Great game.'
The manager walked away ceremoniously. Bea watched him with amusement.
'Where's that accent from? Jaen?'
'Much closer: Santa Coloma de Gramanet,' I specified. 'You don't often take the subway, do you?'
'My father says the subway is full of riffraff and that if you're on your own, the Gypsies feel you up.'
I was about to say something but decided to keep my mouth shut. Bea laughed. As soon as the coffees and the food arrived, I fell on it all with no pretence at refinement. Bea didn't eat anything. With her hands spread around the steaming cup, she watched me with half a smile, caught somewhere between curiosity and amazement.
'So what is it you're going to show me today?'
'A number of things. In fact, what I'm going to show you is part of a story. Didn't you tell me the other day that what you like to do is read?'
Bea nodded, arching her eyebrows.
'Well, this is a story about books.'
'About books?'
'About accursed books, about the man who wrote them, about a character who broke out of the pages of a novel so that he could burn it, about a betrayal and a lost friendship. It's a story of love, of hatred, and of the dreams that live in the shadow of the wind.'
'You sound like the jacket blurb of a Victorian novel, Daniel.' 'That's probably because I work in a bookshop and I've seen too many. But this is a true story. As real as the fact that this bread they served us is at least three days old. And, like all true stories, it begins and ends in a cemetery, although not the sort of cemetery you imagine.' She smiled the way children smile when they've been promised a riddle or a magic trick. 'I'm all ears.'
I gulped down the last of my coffee and looked at her for a few moments without saying anything. I thought about how much I wanted to lose myself in those evasive eyes. I thought about the loneliness that would take hold of me that night when I said goodbye to her, once I had run out of tricks or stories to make her stay with me any longer. I thought about how little I had to offer her and how much I wanted from her.
'I can hear your brains clanking, Daniel. What are you planning?' I began my story with that distant dawn when I awoke and could not remember my mother's face, and I didn't stop until I paused to recall the world of shadows I had sensed that very morning in the home of Nuria Monfort. Bea listened quietly, making no judgment, drawing no conclusions. I told her about my first visit to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books and about the night I spent reading The Shadow of the Wind. I told her about my meeting with the faceless man and about the letter signed by Penelope Aldaya that I always carried with me without knowing why. I spoke about how I had never kissed Clara Barcelo, or anyone, and of how my hands had trembled when I felt the touch of Nuria Monfort's lips on my skin, only a few hours before. I told her how, until that moment, I had not understood that this was a story about lonely people, about absence and loss, and that that was why I had taken refuge in it until it became confused with my own life, like someone who has escaped into the pages of a novel because those whom he needs to love seem nothing more than ghosts inhabiting the mind of a stranger.
'Don't say anything,' whispered Bea. 'Just take me to that place.' It was pitch dark when we stopped by the front door of the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, in the gloom of Calle Arco del Teatro. I lifted the devil-head knocker and knocked three times. While we waited, sheltering under the arch of the entrance, the cold wind smelled of charcoal. I met Bea's eyes, so close to mine. She was smiling. Soon we heard light footsteps approaching the door, and then the tired voice of the keeper.
'Who's there?' asked Isaac.
'It's Daniel Sempere, Isaac'
I thought I could hear him swearing under his breath. There followed the thousand squeaks and groans from the intricate system of locks. Finally the door yielded an inch or two, revealing the vulturine face of Isaac Monfort lit by candlelight. When he saw me, the keeper sighed and rolled his eyes.
'Stupid of me. I don't know why I ask,' he said. 'Who else could it be at this time of night?'
Isaac was clothed in what seemed like a strange crossbreed of dressing gown, bathrobe, and Russian army coat. The padded slippers perfectly matched a checked wool cap, rather like a professor's cap, complete with tassel.
'I hope I didn't get you out of bed,' I said.
'Not at all. I'd only just started saying my prayers. . . .'
He looked at Bea as if he'd just seen a pack of dynamite sticks alight at his feet. 'For your own good, I hope this isn't what it looks like,' he threatened.
'Isaac, this is my friend Beatriz, and with your permission I'd like to show her this place. Don't worry, she's completely trustworthy.'
'Sempere, I've known toddlers with more common sense than you.'
'It would only be for a moment.'
Isaac let out a snort of defeat and examined Bea carefully, like a suspicious policeman.
'Do you realize you're in the company of an idiot?' he asked.
Bea smiled politely. 'I'm beginning to come to terms with it.'
'Sublime innocence! Do you know the rules?'
Bea nodded. Isaac mumbled under his breath and let us in, scanning the shadows of the street, as usual.
'I visited your daughter, Nuria,' I mentioned casually. 'She's well. Working hard, but well. She sends you her love.'
'Yes, and poisoned darts. You're not much good at making things up, Sempere. But I appreciate the effort. Come on in.'
Once inside, Isaac handed me the candle and proceeded to lock the door.
'When you've finished, you know where to find me.'
Under the mantle of darkness, we could only just make out the spectral forms of the book maze. The candle projected its bubble of light at our feet. Bea paused, astonished, at the entrance to the labyrinth. I smiled, recognizing in her face the same expression my father must have seen in mine years before. We entered the tunnels and galleries of the maze; they creaked under our footsteps. The marks I had made during my last incursion were still there.
'Come on, I want to show you something,' I said.
More than once I lost my own trail and we had to go backwards in search of the last sign. Bea watched me with a mixture of alarm and fascination. My inner compass told me we were caught in a knot of spirals that rose slowly towards the very heart of the labyrinth. At last I managed to retrace my steps through the tangle of corridors and tunnels until I entered a narrow passage that felt like a gangway stretching out into the gloom, I knelt down by the last shelf and looked for my old friend hidden behind the row of dust-covered volumes - the layer of dust shining like frost in the candlelight. I took the book and handed it to Bea.
'Let me introduce you to Julian Carax.'
'The Shadow of the Wind,' Bea read, stroking the faded letters on the cover.
'Can I take it with me?' she asked.
'You can take any book but this one.'
'But that's not fair. After all the things you've told me, this is precisely the one I want.'
'One day, perhaps. But not today.'
I took it from her and put it back in its hiding place.
'I'll come back without you and I'll take it away without you knowing,' she said mockingly.
'You wouldn't find it in a thousand years.'
'That's what you think. I've seen your notches, and I, too, know the story of the Minotaur.'
'Isaac wouldn't let you in.'
'You're wrong. He prefers me to you.'
'And how do you know?'
'I can read people's eyes.'
Despite myself, I believed her and turned mine away.
'Choose any other one. Here, this one looks promising. The Castilian Hog, That Unknown Beast: In Search of the Roots of Iberian Pork, by Anselmo Torquemada. I'm sure it sold more copies than any book by Julian Carax. Every part of the pig can be put to good use.'
'I'm more attracted to this other one.'
'Tess of the d'Urbervilles. It's the original. You're bold enough to read Hardy in English?'
She gave me a sidelong glance.
'All yours, then!'
'Don't you see? It feels as if it's been waiting for me. As if it has been hiding here for me from before I was born.'
I looked at her in astonishment. Bea's lips crinkled into a smile. 'What have I said?'
Then, without thinking, barely brushing her lips, I kissed her.
It was almost midnight when we reached the front door of Bea's house. We had walked most of the way without speaking, not daring to turn our thoughts into words. We walked apart, hiding from one another. Bea walked upright with her Tess under her arm, and I followed a step behind, still tasting her lips. The way Isaac had glanced at me when we left the Cemetery of Forgotten Books was still on my mind. It was a look I knew well and had seen a thousand times from my father, a look that asked me whether I had the slightest idea what I was doing. The last hours I'd been lost in another world, a universe of touches and looks I did not understand and that blotted out both reason and shame. Now, back in the reality that always lies in wait among the shadows of the Ensanche quarter, the enchantment was lifting, and all I had left was painful desire and an indescribable restlessness. And yet just looking at Bea was enough for me to realize that my doubts were a breeze compared to the storm that was raging inside her. We stopped by her door and looked at one another without attempting to pretend. A mellifluous night watchman was walking up to us unhurriedly, humming boleros to the rhythmic jingle of his bunches of keys.
'Perhaps you'd rather we didn't see each other again,' I suggested without much conviction.
'I don't know, Daniel. I don't know anything. Is that what you want?'
'No. Of course not. And you?'
She shrugged her shoulders, and smiled faintly. 'What do you think?' she asked. 'I lied to you earlier, you know. In the cloister.'
'What about?'
'About not wanting to see you today.'
The night porter hung about, smirking at us, obviously indifferent to my first whispered exchange at a front door. To him, experienced in such matters, it must have seemed a string of cliches and banalities.
'Don't worry about me, there's no hurry,' he said. 'I'll have a smoke on the corner, and you just let me know.'
I waited for the watchman to walk away.
'When will I see you again?'
'I don't know, Daniel'
'Tomorrow?'
'Please, Daniel. I don't know.'
I nodded. She stroked my face. 'You'd better leave now.'