His eyes flashed with impatience. The first blow cut my breath in two. I slid to the floor, my back against the wall, my knees giving way. A powerful grip seized me by the throat and held me up, nailed to the wall.
'What have you done to her, you son of a bitch?'
I tried to get away, but Tomas knocked me down with another punch to the face. I fell into blackness, my head wrapped in a blaze of pain. I collapsed onto the corridor tiles. I tried to crawl away, but Tomas grasped my coat collar and dragged me to the landing. He tossed me onto the staircase like a piece of rubbish.
'If anything has happened to Bea, I swear I'll kill you,' he said from the doorway.
I got up on my knees, begging for a moment of time, for an opportunity to recover my voice. But the door closed, abandoning me to the darkness. There was a sharp pain in my left ear, and I put my hand to my head, twisting with agony. I could feel warm blood. I stood up as best I could. My stomach muscles, where Tomas's first blow had landed, were smarting - that was just the beginning. I slid down the stairs. Don Saturno shook his head when he saw me.
'Here, come inside for a minute, until you feel better.'
I shook my head, holding my stomach with both hands. The left side of my head throbbed, as if the bones were trying to detach themselves from the flesh.
'You're bleeding,' said Don Saturno with a concerned look.
'It's not the first time___'
'Well, if you keep on fooling around, you won't have many chances left. Here, come in and I'll call a doctor, please.'
I managed to get to the main door and escape the caretaker's kindness. It was now snowing hard and the pavements were covered in veils of white mist. The icy wind whistled through my clothes and stung the bleeding wound on my face. I don't know whether I was crying with pain, anger, or fear. The indifferent snow silenced my cowardly weeping, and I walked away slowly into the dawn, one more shadow leaving his tracks in God's dandruff.
2.
As I approached the crossing with Calle Balmes, I noticed that a car was following me, hugging the pavement. The pain in my head had given way to a feeling of vertigo that made me reel, so that I had to walk holding onto the walls. The car stopped, and two men got out. A sharp, whistling sound had filled my ears, and I couldn't hear the engine or the calls of the two figures in black who grabbed hold of me, one on either side, and dragged me hurriedly to the car. I fell into the back seat, drunk with nausea. Floods of blinding light came and went inside my brain. I felt the car moving. A pair of hands touched my face, my head, my ribs. Coming upon the manuscript of Nuria Monfort, which was hidden inside my coat, one of the figures snatched it from me. I tried to stop him with jellylike arms. The other silhouette leaned over me. I knew he was talking when I felt his breath on my face. I waited to see Fumero's face light up and feel the blade of his knife on my throat. Two eyes rested on mine, and as the curtain of consciousness fell, I recognized the toothless, welcoming smile of Fermin Romero de Torres.
I woke up in a sweat that stung my skin. Two hands held my shoulders firmly and settled me into a small bed surrounded by candles, as in a wake. Fermin's face appeared on my right. He was smiling, but even in my delirium I could sense his anxiety. Next to him, standing, I recognized Don Federico Flavia, the watchmaker.
'He seems to be coming round, Fermin,' said Don Federico. 'Shall I go and prepare some broth to revive him?'
'It won't do him any harm. While you're at it, could you make me a sandwich? Whatever you can find. A double-decker, if you please. All this excitement has suddenly revived my appetite.'
Federico scurried off, and we were left alone.
'Where are we, Fermin?'
'In a safe place. Technically speaking, we're in a small apartment on the left side of the Ensanche quarter, the property of some friends of Don Federico, to whom we owe our lives and more. Slanderers would describe it as a love nest, but for us it's a sanctuary.'
I tried to sit up. The pain in my ear was now a burning throb.
'Will I go deaf?'
'I don't know about that, but a bit more beating and you'd certainly have been left a borderline vegetable. That troglodyte Senor Aguilar almost pulped your grey cells.'
'It wasn't Senor Aguilar who beat me. It was Tomas.'
'Tomas? Your friend? The inventor?'
I nodded.
'You must have done something to deserve it.'
'Bea has left home . . .' I began.
Fermin frowned. 'Go on.'
'She's pregnant.'
Fermin was looking at me open-mouthed. For once his expression was impenetrable.
'Don't look at me like that, Fermin, please.'
'What do you want me to do? Start handing out cigars?'
I tried to get up, but the pain and Fermin's hands stopped me.
'I've got to find her, Fermin.'
'Steady, there. You're not in any fit state to go anywhere. Tell me where the girl is, and I'll go and find her.'
'I don't know where she is.'
'I'm going to have to ask you to be more specific'
Don Federico appeared carrying a cup of steaming broth. He smiled at me warmly.
'How are you feeling, Daniel?'
'Much better, thanks, Don Federico.'
'Take a couple of these pills with the soup.'
He glanced briefly at Fermin, who nodded.
'They're painkillers.'
I swallowed the pills and sipped the cup of broth, which tasted of sherry. Don Federico, the soul of discretion, left the room and closed the door. It was then that I noticed that Fermin had Nuria Montfort's manuscript on his lap. The clock ticking on the bedside table showed one o'clock - in the afternoon, I supposed.
'Is it still snowing?'
'That's an understatement. This is a powdery version of the Flood.'
'Have you read it?' I asked.
Fermin simply nodded.
'I must find Bea before it's too late. I think I know where she is.'
I sat up in bed, pushing- Fermin's arms aside. I looked around me. The walls swayed like weeds at the bottom of a pond and the ceiling seemed to be moving away. I could barely hold myself upright. Fermin effortlessly laid me back on the bed again.
'You're not going anywhere, Daniel.'
'What were those pills?'
'Morpheus's liniment. You're going to sleep like a log.'
'No, not now, I can't...'
I continued to blabber until my eyelids closed and I dropped into a black, empty sleep, the sleep of the guilty.
It was almost dusk when the tombstone was lifted from me. I opened my eyes to a dark room watched over by two tired candles flickering on the bedside table. Fermin, defeated on an armchair in the corner, snored with the fury of a man three times his size. At his feet, scattered like a flood of tears, lay Nuria Monfort's manuscript. The headache had lessened to a slow, tepid throb. I tiptoed over to the bedroom door and went out into a little hall with a balcony and a door that seemed to open onto the staircase. My coat and shoes lay on a chair. A purplish light came in through the window, speckled with iridescence. I walked over to the balcony and saw that it was still snowing. Half the roofs of Barcelona were mottled with white and scarlet. In the distance the towers of the Industrial College looked like needles in the haze, clinging to the last rays of sun. The windowpane was coated with frost. I put my index finger on the glass and wrote: Gone to find Bea. Don't follow me. Back soon.
The truth had struck me as soon as I woke up, as if some stranger had whispered it to me in a dream. I stepped out onto the landing and rushed down the stairs and out of the front door. Calle Urgel was like a river of shiny white sand as the wind blew the snow about in gusts. Streetlamps and trees emerged like masts in the fog. I walked to the nearest subway station, Hospital Clinico, past the stand of afternoon papers carrying the news on the front page, with photographs of the Ramblas covered in snow and the Canaletas fountain bleeding stalactites. snowfall of the century, the headlines blared. I fell onto a bench on the platform and breathed in that perfume of tunnels and soot that trains bring with them. On the other side of the tracks, on a poster proclaiming the delights of the Tibidabo amusement park, the blue tram was lit up like a street party, and behind it you could just make out the outline of the Aldaya mansion. I wondered whether Bea had seen the same image and realized she had nowhere else to go.
3.
When I came out of the subway tunnel, it was starting to get dark. Avenida del Tibidabo lay deserted, stretching out in a long line of cypress trees and mansions. I glimpsed the shape of the blue tram at the stop and heard the conductor's bell piercing the wind. A quick run, and I jumped on just as it was pulling away. The conductor, my old acquaintance, took the coins, mumbling under his breath, and I sat down inside the carriage, a bit more sheltered from the snow and the cold. The sombre mansions filed slowly by, behind the tram's icy windows. The conductor watched me with a mixture of suspicion and bemusement, which the cold seemed to have frozen on his face.
'Number thirty-two, young man.'
I turned and saw the ghostly silhouette of the Aldaya mansion advancing towards us like the prow of a dark ship. The tram stopped with a shudder. I got off, fleeing from the conductor's gaze.
'Good luck,' he murmured.
I watched the tram disappear up the avenue, leaving behind only the echo of its bell. Darkness fell around me. I hurried along the garden wall, looking for the gap at the back, where it had tumbled down. As I climbed over, I thought I could hear footsteps on the snow approaching on the opposite pavement. I stopped for a second and remained motionless on top of the wall. The sound of footsteps faded in the wind. I jumped down to the other side and entered the garden. The weeds had frozen into stems of crystal. The statues of the fallen angels were covered in shrouds of ice. The water in the fountain had frozen over, forming a black, shiny mirror, from which only the stone claw of the sunken angel protruded, like an obsidian sword. Tears of ice hung from the index finger. The accusing hand of the angel pointed straight at the main door, which stood ajar.
I ran up the steps without bothering to muffle the sound of my footsteps. Pushing the door open, I walked into the entrance hall. A procession of candles lined the way towards the interior. They were Bea's candles but had almost burned down to the floor. I followed their trail and stopped at the foot of the grand staircase. The path of candles continued up the steps to the first floor. I ventured up the stairs, following my distorted shadow on the walls. When I reached the first-floor landing, I saw two more candles set along the corridor. A third one flickered outside the room that had once been Penelope's. I went up to the door and rapped gently with my knuckles.
'Julian?' came a shaky voice.
I grabbed hold of the doorknob and slowly opened the door. Bea gazed at me from a corner of the room, wrapped in a blanket. I ran to her side and held her. I could feel her dissolving into tears.
'I didn't know where to go,' she murmured. 'I called your home a few times, but there was no answer. I was scared....'
Bea dried her tears with her fists and fixed her eyes on mine. I nodded; there was no need to reply with words.
'Why did you call me Julian?'
Bea cast a glance at the half-open door. 'He's here. In this house. He comes and goes. He discovered me the other day, when I was trying to get into the house. Without my saying anything, he knew who I was and what was happening. He set me up in this room, and he brought me a blanket, water, and some food. He told me to wait. He said that everything was going to turn out all right, that you'd come for me. At night we talked for hours. He talked to me about Penelope, about Nuria - above all he spoke about you, about us two. He told me I had to teach you to forget him. . ..'
'Where is he now?'
'Downstairs. In the library. He said he was waiting for someone, and told me not to move from here.'
'Waiting for who?'
'I don't know. He said it was someone who would come with you, that you'd bring him. . ..'
When I peered into the corridor, I could already hear footsteps below, near the staircase. I recognized the spidery shadow on the walls, the black raincoat, the hat pulled down like a hood, and the gun in his hand shining like a scythe. Fumero. He had always reminded me of someone, or something, but until then I hadn't understood what.
4.
I snuffed out the candles with my fingers and made a sign to Bea to keep quiet. She grabbed my hand and looked at me questioningly. Fumero's slow steps could be heard below us. I led Bea back inside the room and signalled to her to stay there, hiding behind the door.
'Don't leave this room, whatever happens,' I whispered.
'Don't leave me now, Daniel. Please.'
'I must warn Carax.'
Bea gave me an imploring look, but I went out into the corridor and tiptoed to the top of the main staircase. There was no sign of Fumero. He had stopped at some point in the darkness and stood there, motionless, patient. I stepped back into the corridor and walked down it, past the row of bedrooms, until I got to the front of the mansion. A large window coated in frost refracted two blue beams of light, cloudy as stagnant water. I moved over to the window and saw a black car stationed in front of the main gate, its lights on. I recognized it as Lieutenant Palacios's car. The glowing ember of a cigarette in the dark gave away his presence behind the steering wheel. I went slowly back to the staircase and began to descend, step by step, placing my feet with infinite care. Halfway down, I stopped and scanned the darkness that had engulfed the ground floor.
Fumero had left the front door open as he came in. The wind had blown out the candles and was spitting whirls of snow and frozen leaves across the hall. I went down four more steps, hugging the wall, and caught a glimpse of the large library windows. There was still no sign of Fumero. I wondered whether he had gone down to the basement or to the crypt. The powdery snow that blew in from outside was fast erasing his footprints. I slipped down to the base of the stairs and peered into the corridor that led to the main door. An icy wind hit me. The claw of the submerged angel was just visible outside. I looked in the other direction. The entrance to the library was about ten yards from the foot of the staircase. The anteroom that led to it was sunk in shadows, and I realized that Fumero could be only a few yards from where I was standing, watching me. I looked into the darkness, as impenetrable as the waters of a well. Taking a deep breath, I groped across the distance that separated me from the entrance to the library.
The large oval hall was submerged in a dim, misty light, speckled with shadows that were cast by the snow falling heavily on the other side of the windows. My eyes skimmed over the empty walls in search of Fumero - could he be standing by the entrance? An object protruded from the wall just a couple of yards on my right. For a moment I thought I saw it move, but it was only the reflection of the moon on the blade. A knife, perhaps a double-bladed penknife, had been sunk into the wood panelling. It pierced a square of paper or cardboard. I stepped closer and recognized the image. It was an identical copy of the half-burned photograph that a stranger had once left on the bookshop counter. In the picture, Julian and Penelope, still adolescents, smiled in happiness. The knife went through Julian's chest. I understood then that it hadn't been Lain Coubert, or Julian Carax, who had left the photograph for me, like an invitation. It had been Fumero. The photograph had been poisoned bait. I raised my hand to snatch it away from the knife, but the icy touch of Fumero's gun on my neck stopped me.
'An image is worth more than a thousand words, Daniel. If your father hadn't been a shitty bookseller, he would have taught you that by now.'
I turned slowly and faced the barrel of the pistol. It stank of fresh gunpowder. Fumero's face was contorted into a terrifying grimace.
'Where's Carax?' he demanded.
'Far from here. He knew you would come for him. He's left.'
Fumero observed me in silence. 'I'm going to blow your brains out, kid.'
'That's not going to help you much. Carax isn't here.'
'Open your mouth,' ordered Fumero.
'What for?'