'The owl drowned, period. Happy?' I snapped.
'Intriguing metaphor. Have you been dusting off your Verlaine, young man?'
'I stick to prose on Monday mornings. What do you want me to tell you?'
'I'll leave that up to you. The number of estocadas or the laps of honour.'
'I'm not in the mood, Fermin.'
'O youth, flower of fools! Well, don't get irritated with me. I have fresh news concerning our investigation on your friend Julian Carax.'
'I'm all ears.'
He gave me one of his cloak-and-dagger looks, one eyebrow raised.
'Well, it turns out that yesterday, after leaving Bernarda back home with her virtue intact but a nice couple of well-placed bruises on her backside, I was assailed by a fit of insomnia - due to the evening's erotic arousals - which gave me the pretext to walk down to one of the information centres of Barcelona's underworld, i.e., the tavern of Eliodoro Salfuman, aka "Coldprick", situated in a seedy but rather colourful establishment in Calle Sant Jeroni, pride of the Raval quarter.'
'The abridged version, Fermin, for goodness' sake.'
'Coming. The fact is that once I was there, ingratiating myself with some of the usual crowd, old chums from troubled times of yore, I began to make inquiries about this Miquel Moliner, the husband of your Mata Hari Nuria Monfort, and a supposed inmate at the local penitential.'
'Supposed?'
'With a capital S. There are no slips at all 'twixt cup and lip in this case, if you see what I mean. I know from experience that when it comes to the census of the prison population, my informants in Coldprick's tabernacle are much more accurate than the pencil pushers in the law courts. I can guarantee, Daniel, my friend, that nobody has heard mention of the name Miquel Moliner as an inmate, visitor, or any other living soul in the prisons of Barcelona for at least ten years.'
'Perhaps he's serving in some other prison.'
'Yes. Alcatraz, Sing Sing, or the Bastille. Daniel, that woman lied to you.'
'I suppose she did.'
'Don't suppose; accept it.'
'So what now? Miquel Moliner is a dead end.'
'Or this Nuria is very crafty.'
'What are you suggesting?'
'At the moment we must explore other avenues. It wouldn't be a bad idea to call on the good nanny in the story the priest foisted on us yesterday morning.'
'Don't tell me you think that the governess has vanished too.'
'No, but I do think it's time we stopped fussing about and knocking on doors as if we were begging for alms. In this line of business, you have to go in through the back door. Are you with me?'
'You know that I worship the ground you walk on.'
'Well, then, start dusting your altar-boy costume. This afternoon, as soon as we've closed the shop, we're going to make a charitable visit to the old lady in the Hospice of Santa Lucia. And now tell me, how did it go yesterday with the young filly? Don't be secretive. If you hold back, may you sprout virulent pimples.'
I sighed in defeat and made my confession, down to the last detail. At the end of my narrative, after listing what I was sure were just the existential anxieties of a moronic schoolboy, Fermin surprised me with sudden heartfelt hug.
'You're in love,' he mumbled, full of emotion, patting me on the back. 'Poor kid.'
That afternoon we left the bookshop precisely at closing time, a move that earned us a steely look from my father, who was beginning to suspect that we were involved in some shady business, with all this coming and going. Fermin mumbled something incoherent about a few errands that needed doing, and we quickly disappeared. I told myself that sooner or later I'd have to reveal at least part of all this mess to my father; which part, exactly, was a different question.
On our way, with his usual flair for tales, Fermin briefed me on where we were heading. The Santa Lucia hospice was an institution of dubious reputation housed within the ruins of an ancient palace on Calle Moncada. The legend surrounding the place made it sound like a cross between purgatory and a morgue, with sanitary conditions worse than either. The story was, to say the very least, peculiar. Since the eleventh century, the palace had been home to, among other things, various well-to-do families, a prison, a salon for courtesans, a library of forbidden manuscripts, a barracks, a sculptor's workshop, a sanatorium for plague sufferers, and a convent. In the middle of the nineteenth century, when it was practically crumbling to bits, the palace had been turned into a museum exhibiting circus freaks and other atrocities by a bombastic impresario who called himself Laszlo de Vicherny, Duke of Parma and private alchemist to the House of Bourbon. His real name turned out to be Baltasar Deulofeu i Carallot, the bastard son of a salted-pork entrepreneur and a fallen debutante, who was mostly known for his escapades as a professional gigolo and con artist.
The man took pride in owning Spain's largest collection of human foetuses in different stages of deformity, preserved in jars of embalming fluid, and somewhat less pride in his even larger collection of warrants issued by some of Europe's and America's finest law-enforcement agencies. Among other attractions, 'The Tenebrarium' (as Deulofeu had renamed the palace), offered seances, necromancy, fights (with cocks, rats, dogs, big strapping women, imbeciles, or some combination of the above), as well as betting, a brothel that specialized in cripples and freaks, a casino, a legal and financial consultancy, a workshop for love potions, regional folklore and puppet shows, and parades of exotic dancers. At Christmas a Nativity play was staged, sparing no expense, and featuring the troupe from the museum and the entire collection of prostitutes. Its fame reached the far ends of the province.
The Tenebrarium was a roaring success for fifteen years, until it was discovered that Deulofeu had seduced the wife, the daughter, and the mother-in-law of the military governor of the province within a single week. The blackest infamy descended on the place and its owner. Before Deulofeu was able to flee the city and don another of his multiple identities, a band of masked thugs seized him in the backstreets of the Santa Maria quarter and proceeded to hang him and set fire to him in the Ciudadela Park, leaving his body to be devoured by the wild dogs that roamed the area. After two decades of neglect, during which time nobody bothered to remove the collection of horrors belonging to the ill-fated Laszlo, The Tenebrarium was transformed into a charitable institution under the care of an order of nuns.
'The Ladies of the Final Ordeal, or something equally morbid,' said Fermin. 'The trouble is, they're very obsessive about the secrecy of the place (bad conscience, I'd say), which means we'll have to think of some ruse for getting in.'
In more recent times, the occupants of the Hospice of Santa Lucia were being recruited from the ranks of dying, abandoned, demented, destitute old people who made up the crowded underworld of Barcelona. Luckily for them, they mostly lasted only a short time after they had been taken in; neither the conditions of the establishment nor the company encouraged longevity. According to Fermin, the deceased were removed shortly before dawn and made their last journey to the communal grave in a covered wagon donated by a firm in Hospitalet that specialized in meat packing and rather dubious delicatessen products - a firm that occasionally would be involved in grim scandals.
'You're making all of this up,' I protested, overwhelmed by the horrific details of Fermin's story.
'My inventiveness does not go that far, Daniel. Wait and see. I visited the building on one unfortunate occasion about ten years ago, and I can tell you that it looked as. if they'd hired your friend Julian Carax as an interior decorator. A shame we didn't bring some laurel leaves to stifle the aromas. But we'll have enough trouble as it is just being allowed in.'
With my expectations thus shaped, we turned into Calle Moncada, by that time of day already transformed into a dark passage flanked by old mansions that had been turned into storehouses and workshops. The litany of bells coming from the basilica of Santa Maria del Mar mingled with the echo of our footsteps. Soon a penetrating, bitter odour permeated the cold winter breeze.
'What's that smell?'
'We've arrived,' announced Fermin.
30.
A front door of rotted wood let us into a courtyard guarded by gas lamps that flickered above gargoyles and angels, their features disintegrating on the old stone. A staircase led to the first floor, where a rectangle of light marked the main entrance to the hospice. The gaslight radiating from this opening gave an ochre tone to the miasma that emanated from within. An angular, predatory figure observed us coolly from the shadows of the door, her eyes the same colour as her habit. She held a steaming wooden bucket that gave off an indescribable stench.
'Hail-Mary-Full-Of-Grace-Conceived-Without-Sin!' Fermin called out enthusiastically.
'Where's the coffin?' answered the voice from up high, serious and taciturn.
'Coffin?' Fermin and I replied in unison.
'Aren't you from the undertaker's?' asked the nun in a weary voice.
I wondered whether that was a comment on our appearance or a genuine question. Fermin's face lit up at such a providential opportunity.
'The coffin is in the van. First we'd like to examine the customer. A pure technicality.'
I felt overpowered by nausea.
'I thought Senor Collbato was going to come in person,' said the nun.
'Senor Collbato begs to be excused, but a rather complicated embalming has cropped up at the last moment. A circus strongman.'
'Do you work with Senor Collbato in the funeral parlour?'
'We're his right and left hands, respectively. Wilfred the Hairy at your service, and here, at my side, my apprentice and student, Sanson Carrasco.'
'Pleased to meet you,' I rounded off.
The nun gave us a brief looking-over and nodded, indifferent to the pair of scarecrows reflected in her eyes.
'Welcome to Santa Lucia. I'm Sister Hortensia, the one who called you. Follow me.
We followed Sister Hortensia without a word through a cavernous corridor whose smell reminded me of the subway tunnels. It was flanked by door less frames through which you could make out candlelit halls filled with rows of beds, piled up against the wall and covered with mosquito nets that moved in the air like shrouds. I could hear groans and see glimpses of human shapes through the netting.
'This way,' Sistern Hortensia beckoned, a few yards ahead of us.
We entered a wide vault which I had no difficulty in imagining as the stage for The Tenebrarium described by Fermin. The darkness obscured what at first seemed like a collection of wax figures, sitting or abandoned in corners, with dead, glassy eyes that shone like tin coins in the candlelight. I thought that perhaps they were dolls or remains of the old museum. Then I realized that they were moving, though very slowly, even stealthily. It was impossible to tell their age or gender. The rags covering them were the colour of ash.
'Senor Collbato said not to touch or clean anything,' said Sister Hortensia, looking slightly apologetic. 'We just placed the poor thing in one of the boxes that was lying around here, because he was beginning to drip.'
'You did the right thing. You can't be too careful,' agreed Fermin.
I threw him a despairing look. He shook his head calmly, indicating that I should leave him in charge of the situation. Sister Hortensia led us to what appeared to be a cell with no ventilation or light, at the end of a narrow passage. She took one of the gas lamps that hung from the wall and handed it to us.
'Will you be long? I'm rather busy.'
'Don't worry about us. You get on with your things, and we'll take him away.'
'All right. If you need anything I'll be down in the basement, in the ward for the bedridden. If it's not too much bother, take him out through the back door. Don't let the others see him. It's bad for the patients' morale.'
'We quite understand,' I said in a faltering voice.
Sister Hortensia gazed at me for a moment with vague curiosity. When I saw her more closely, I noticed that she was quite an age herself, almost an elderly woman. Few years separated her from the rest of the hospice's guests.
'Listen, isn't the apprentice a bit young for this sort of work?' she asked.
'The truths of life know no age, Sister,' remarked Fermin.
The nun nodded and smiled at me sweetly. There was no suspicion in that look, only sadness.
'Even so,' she murmured.
She wandered off into the shadows, carrying her bucket and dragging her shadow like a bridal veil. Fermin pushed me into the cell. It was a dismal, claustrophobic room built into the walls of a cave that sweated with damp. Chains ending in hooks hung from the ceiling, and the cracked floor was broken up by a sewage grating. In the centre of the room, on a greyish marble table, was a wooden crate for industrial packaging. Fermin raised the lamp, and we caught a glimpse of the deceased nestling between the straw padding. Parchment features, incomprehensible, jagged and frozen. The swollen skin was purple. The eyes were open: white, like broken eggshells.
The sight made my stomach turn, and I looked away.
'Come on, let's get down to work,' ordered Fermin.
'Are you mad?'
'I mean we have to find this Jacinta woman before we're found out.'
'How?'
'How do you think? By asking.'
We peered into the corridor to make sure Sister Hortensia had vanished. Then we scurried back to the hall we had previously crossed. The wretched figures were still observing us, with looks that ranged from curiosity to fear and, in some cases, to greed.
'Watch it, some of these would suck your blood if they thought it would make them any younger,' said Fermin. 'Age makes them all look as meek as lambs, but there are as many sons of bitches in here as out there, or more. Because these are the ones who have lasted and buried the rest. Don't feel sorry for them. Go on, begin with those ones in the corner - they look harmless enough.'
If those words were meant to give me courage for the mission, they failed miserably. I looked at the group of human remains that languished in the corner and smiled at them. It occurred to me that their very presence was testimony to the moral emptiness of the universe and the mechanical brutality with which it destroys the parts it no longer needs. Fermin seemed able to read these profound thoughts and nodded gravely.
'Mother Nature is the meanest of bitches, that's the sad truth,' he said. 'Go on, be brave.'
My first round of inquiries as to the whereabouts of Jacinta Coronado produced only empty looks, groans, burps, and ravings. Fifteen minutes later I called it a day and joined Fermin to see whether he'd had better luck. His disappointment was all too obvious.
'How are we going to find Jacinta Coronado in his shithole?'
'I don't know. It's a cauldron of idiots. I've tried the Sugus sweet trick, but they seem to think they're suppositories.'
'What if we ask Sister Hortensia? We tell her the truth, and have done with it.'
'Telling the truth should be our last resort, Daniel, even more so when you're dealing with a nun. Let's use up all our powder first. Look at that little group over there. They seem quite jolly. I'm sure they're very articulate. Go and question them.'
'And what are you planning to do?'
'I'll keep watch, in case the penguin returns. You get on with your business.'
With little or no hope of success, I went up to the group of patients occupying another corner of the room.
'Good evening,' I said, realizing instantly how absurd my greeting was, because in there, it was always night time. 'I'm looking for Senora Jacinta Coronado. Co-ro-na-do. Do any of you know her, or could you tell me where to find her?'
I was confronted by four faces corrupted by greed. There's something here, I thought. Maybe all's not lost.
'Jacinta Coronado?' I insisted.
The four patients exchanged looks and nodded to each other. One of them, a potbellied man without a single hair on his body, seemed to be their leader. His appearance and manner made me think of a happy Nero, plucking his harp while Rome rotted at his feet. With a majestic gesture, the Nero figure smiled at me playfully. I returned the smile, hopefully.
The man gestured at me to come closer, as if he wanted to whisper something in my ear. I hesitated, then leaned forward.
I lent my ear to the patient's lips - so close that I could feel his fetid, warm breath on my skin. 'Can you tell me where I can find Senora Jacinta Coronado?' I asked for the last time. I was afraid he'd bite me. Instead he emitted a violently loud fart. His companions burst out laughing and clapped with joy. I took a few steps back, but it was too late: the flatulent vapours had already hit me. It was then that I noticed, close to me, an old man, all hunched up, with a prophet's beard, thin hair, and fiery eyes, who was leaning on a walking stick and gazing at the others with disdain.
'You're wasting your time, young man. Juanito only knows how to let off farts, and the others can only laugh and smell them. As you see, the social structure here isn't very different from that of the outside world.'
The ancient philosopher spoke in a solemn voice and with perfect diction. He looked me up and down, taking the measure of me.
'You're looking for Jacinta?'