'Lain Coubert?'
'Does that sound familiar?'
'It's the name of one of the characters in The Shadow of the Wind, the last of Carax's novels.'
Isaac frowned. 'A fictional character?'
'In the novel Lain Coubert is the name used by the devil.'
'A bit theatrical, if you ask me. But whoever he was, at least he had a sense of humour,' Isaac reckoned.
With the memory of that night's encounter still fresh in my mind, I could not see the humorous side of it, from any angle, but I saved my opinion for a more auspicious occasion.
'This person, Coubert, or whatever his name is - was his face burned, disfigured?'
Isaac looked at me with a smile that betrayed both enjoyment and concern. 'I haven't the foggiest. The person who told me all this never actually got to see him, and only knew because Cabestany's son told his secretary the following day. He didn't mention anything about burned faces. Are you sure you haven't got this out of some radio show?'
I threw my head back, as if to make light of the subject. 'How did the matter end? Did the publisher's son sell the books to Coubert?' I asked.
'The senseless dunce tried to be too clever by half. He asked for more money than Coubert was proposing, and Coubert withdrew his offer. A few days later, shortly after midnight, Cabestany's warehouse in Pueblo Nuevo burned down to its foundations. And for free.'
I sighed. 'What happened to Carax's books, then? Were they all destroyed?'
'Nearly all. Luckily, when Cabestany's secretary heard about the offer, she had a premonition. On her own initiative, she went to the warehouse and took a copy of each of the Carax titles. She was the one who had corresponded with Carax, and over the years they had formed a friendship of sorts. Her name was Nuria, and I think she was the only person in the publishing house, probably in all of Barcelona, who had read Carax's novels. Nuria has a fondness for lost causes. When she was little, she would take in small animals she picked up in the street. In time she went on to adopt failed authors, maybe because her father wanted to be one and never made it.'
'You seem to know her very well.'
Isaac wore his devilish smile. 'More than she thinks I do. She's my daughter.'
Silence and doubt gnawed at me. The more I heard of the story, the more confused I felt. 'Apparently, Carax returned to Barcelona in 1936.
Some say he died here. Did he have any relatives left here? Someone who might know about him?'
Isaac sighed. 'Goodness only knows. Carax's parents had been separated for some time, I believe. The mother had gone off to South America, where she remarried. I don't think he was on speaking terms with his father since he moved to Paris.'
'Why was that?'
'I don't know. People tend to complicate their own lives, as if living weren't already complicated enough.'
'Do you know whether Carax's father is still alive?'
'I hope so. He was younger than me, but I go out very little these days and I haven't read the obituary pages for years - acquaintances drop dead like flies, and, quite frankly, it puts the wind up you. By the way, Carax was his mother's surname. The father was called Fortuny. He had a hat shop on Ronda de San Antonio.'
'Is it possible, then, do you think, that when he returned to Barcelona, Carax may have felt tempted to visit your daughter, Nuria, if they were friends, since he wasn't on good terms with his father?'
Isaac laughed bitterly. I'm probably the last person who would know. After all, I'm her father. I know that once, in 1932 or 1933, Nuria went to Paris on business for Cabestany, and she stayed in Julian Carax's apartment for a couple of weeks. It was Cabestany who told me. According to my daughter, she stayed in a hotel. She was unmarried at the time, and I had an inkling that Carax was a bit smitten with her. My Nuria is the sort who breaks a man's heart just by walking into a shop.'
'Do you mean they were lovers?'
'You like melodrama, eh? Look, I've never interfered in Nuria's private life, because mine isn't picture perfect either. If you ever have a daughter - a blessing I wouldn't wish on anyone, because it's sod's law that sooner or later she will break your heart - anyhow, as I was saying, if you ever have a daughter, you'll begin, without realizing it, to divide men into two camps: those you suspect are sleeping with her and those you don't. Whoever says that's not true is lying through his teeth. I suspected that Carax was one of the first, so I didn't care whether he was a genius or a poor wretch. To me he was always a scoundrel.'
'Perhaps you were mistaken.'
'Don't be offended, but you're still very young and know as much about women as I do about baking marzipan pastries.'
'No contest there,' I agreed. 'What happened to the books your daughter took from the warehouse?'
'They're here.'
'Here?'
'Where do you think your book came from - the one you found on the day your father brought you to this place?'
'I don't understand.'
'It's very simple. One night, some days after the fire in Cabestany's warehouse, my daughter, Nuria, turned up here. She looked nervous. She said that someone had been following her and she was afraid it was the man called Coubert, who was trying to get hold of the books to destroy them. Nuria said she had come to hide Carax's books. She went into the large hall and hid them in the maze of bookshelves, like buried treasure. I didn't ask her where she'd put them, nor did she tell me. Before she left, she said that as soon as she managed to find Carax, she'd come back for them. It seemed to me that she was still in love with him, but I didn't say anything. I asked her whether she'd seen him recently, whether she'd had any news. She said she hadn't heard from him for months, practically since he'd sent her the final corrections for the manuscript of his last book. I can't say whether she was lying. What I do know is that after that day Nuria didn't hear from Carax again, and those books were left here, gathering dust.'
'Do you think your daughter would be willing to talk to me about all this?'
'Could be, but I don't know whether she'd be able to tell you anything that yours truly hasn't told you already. Remember, all of this happened a long time ago. The truth is that we don't get on as well as I'd like. We see each other once a month. We go out to lunch somewhere close by, and then she's off as quick as she came. I know that a few years ago she married a nice man, a journalist, a bit harebrained, I'd say, one of those people who are always getting into trouble over politics, but with a good heart. They had a civil wedding with no guests. I found out a month later. She has never introduced me to her husband. Miquel, his name is. Or something like that. I don't suppose she's very proud of her father, and I don't blame her. Now she's a changed woman. Imagine, she even learned to knit, and I'm told she no longer dresses like Simone de Beauvoir. One of these days, I'll find out I'm a grandfather. For years she's been working at home as an Italian and French translator. I don't know where she got the talent from, quite frankly. Not from her father, that's for sure. Let me write down her address, though I'm not sure it's a very good idea to say I sent you.'
Isaac scribbled something on the corner of an old newspaper and handed me the scrap of paper.
'I'm very grateful. You never know, maybe she'll remember something. . . .'
Isaac smiled with some sadness. 'As a child she'd remember everything. Everything. Then children grow up, and you no longer know what they think or what they feel. And that's how it should be, I suppose. Don't tell Nuria what I've told you, will you? What's been said here tonight should go no further.'
'Don't worry. Do you think she still thinks about Carax?'
Isaac gave a long sigh and lowered his eyes. 'Heaven knows. I don't know whether she really loved him. These things remain locked inside, and now she's a married woman. When I was your age, I had a girlfriend, Teresita Boadas, her name was - she sewed aprons in the Santamaria textile factory on Calle Comercio. She was sixteen, two years younger than me, and she was the first woman I ever fell for. Don't look at me like that. I know you youngsters think we old people have never fallen in love. Teresita's father had an ice cart in the Borne Market and had been born dumb. You can't imagine how scared I was the day I asked him for his daughter's hand and he spent five long minutes staring at me, without any apparent reaction, holding the ice pick in his hand. I'd been saving up for two years to buy Teresita a wedding ring when she fell ill. Something she'd caught in the workshop, she told me. Six months later she was dead of tuberculosis. I can still remember how the dumb man moaned the day we buried her in the Pueblo Nuevo cemetery.'
Isaac fell into a deep silence. I didn't dare breathe. After a while he looked up and smiled.
'I'm speaking of fifty-five years ago, imagine! But if I must be frank, a day doesn't go by without me thinking of her, of the walks we used to take as far as the ruins of the 1888 Universal Exhibition, or of how she would laugh at me when I read her the poems I wrote in the back room of my uncle Leopoldo's grocery shop. I even remember the face of a Gypsy woman who read our fortune on Bogatell beach and told us we'd always be together. In her own way, she was right. What can I say? Well, yes, I think Nuria still remembers that man, even if she doesn't say so. And the truth is, I'll never forgive Carax for that. You're still very young, but I know how much these things hurt. If you want my opinion, Carax was a robber of hearts, and he took my daughter's to the grave, or to hell. I'll only ask you one thing: if you see her and talk to her, let me know how she is. Find out whether she's happy. And whether she's forgiven her father.'
Shortly before dawn, with only an oil lamp to light my way, I went back into the Cemetery of Forgotten Books. As I did so, I imagined Isaac's daughter wandering through the dark and endless corridors with exactly the same determination as guided me today: to save the book. I thought I remembered the route I'd followed the first time I visited that place with my father, but soon I realized that the twists and turns of the labyrinth bent the passages into spirals that were impossible to recall. Three times I tried to follow a path I thought I had memorized, and three times the maze returned me to the same point. Isaac waited for me there, a wry smile on his face.
'Do you intend to come back for it one day?' he asked.
'Of course.'
'In that case you might like to cheat a little.'
'Cheat?'
'Young man, you're a bit slow on the uptake, aren't you? Remember the Minotaur.'
It took me a few seconds to understand what he was suggesting. Isaac pulled an old penknife out of his pocket and handed it to me.
'Make a mark on every corner, a notch only you will recognize. It's old wood and so full of scratches and grooves that nobody will notice it, unless the person knows what he's looking for.
I followed his advice and once more penetrated the heart of the structure. Every time I changed direction, I stopped to mark the shelves with a C and an X on the side of the passage that I was intending to take. Twenty minutes later I had lost myself in the depths of the tower and then, quite by chance, the place where I was going to bury the novel was revealed to me. To my right I noticed a row of volumes on the disentailment of church property penned by the distinguished Jovellanos. To my adolescent eyes, such a camouflage would have dissuaded even the craftiest mind. I took out a few tomes and inspected the second row that was concealed behind those walls of marble prose. Among little clouds of dust, various plays by Moratin and a brand-new Curial e Guelfa stood side by side with Spinoza's Tractatus Theologico Politicus. As a coup de grace, I resolved to confine the Carax book between the 1901 yearbook of judicial minutiae from the civil courts of Gerona and a collection of novels by Juan Valera. In order to make space, I decided to remove and take with me the book of Golden Age poetry that separated them, and in its place I slipped in The Shadow of the Wind. I took my leave of the novel and put the Jovellanos anthology back in its place, walling in the back row.
Without further ado I left the place, finding my route by the marks I had made on the way in. As I walked in the dark through the tunnels and tunnels of books, I could not help being overcome by a sense of sadness. I couldn't help thinking that if I, by pure chance, had found a whole universe in a single unknown book, buried in that endless necropolis, tens of thousands more would remain unexplored, forgotten forever. I felt myself surrounded by millions of abandoned pages, by worlds and souls without an owner sinking in an ocean of darkness, while the world that throbbed outside the library seemed to be losing its memory, day after day, unknowingly, feeling all the wiser the more it forgot.
Dawn was breaking when I returned to the apartment on Calle Santa Ana. Opening the door quietly, I slipped in without switching on the light. From the entrance hall, I could see the dining room at the end of the corridor, the table still decked out for the party. The cake was there, untouched, and the crockery still waited for the meal. I could make out the motionless silhouette of my father in his armchair, as he observed the scene from the window. He was awake and still wearing his best suit. Wreaths of smoke rose lazily from a cigarette he held between his index and ring fingers, as if it were a pen. I hadn't seen my father smoke for years.
'Good morning,' he murmured, putting out the cigarette in an ashtray that was full of half-smoked butts.
I looked at him without knowing what to say. The light from behind him concealed his eyes.
'Clara phoned a few times last night, a couple of hours after you left,' he said. 'She sounded very worried. She left a message for you to call her, no matter what time it was.'
'I don't intend to see or speak to Clara again,' I said.
My father nodded but didn't reply. I fell into one of the dining-room chairs and stared at the floor.
'Aren't you going to tell me where you've been?'
'Just around.'
'You've given me one hell of a fright.'
There was no anger in his voice and hardly any reproach, just tiredness.
'I know. And I'm sorry,' I answered.
'What have you done to your face?'
'I slipped in the rain and fell.'
'That rain must have a good right hook. Put something on it.'
'It's nothing. I don't even notice it,' I lied. 'What I need is to get some sleep. I can barely stand up.'
'At least open your present before you go to bed,' said my father.
He pointed to the packet wrapped in cellophane, which he had placed on the coffee table the night before. I hesitated for a moment. My father nodded. I took the packet and felt its weight. I handed it to my father without opening it.
'You'd better return it. I don't deserve any presents.'
'Presents are made for the pleasure of the one who gives them, not for the merits of those who receive them,' said my father. 'Besides, it can't be returned. Open it.'
I undid the carefully wrapped package in the dim light of dawn. It contained a shiny carved wooden box, edged with gold rivets. Even before opening it, I was smiling. The sound of the clasp when it unlocked was exquisite, like the ticking of a watch. Inside, the case was lined with dark blue velvet. Victor Hugo's fabulous Montblanc Meisterstuck rested in the centre. It was a dazzling sight. I took it and gazed at it by the light of the balcony. The gold clip of the pen top had an inscription.
Daniel Sempere, 1950 I stared at my father, dumbfounded. I don't think I had ever seen him look as happy as he seemed to me at that moment. Without saying anything, he got up from his armchair and held me tight. I felt a lump in my throat and, lost for words, fell utterly silent.
TRUE TO CHARACTER 1951-1953.
11.
That year autumn blanketed Barcelona with fallen leaves that rippled through the streets like silvery scales. The distant memory of the night of my sixteenth birthday had put a damper on my spirits, or perhaps life had decided to grant me a sabbatical from my melodramatic woes so that I could begin to grow up. I was surprised at how little I thought about Clara Barcelo, or Julian Carax, or that faceless cipher who smelled of burned paper and claimed to be a character straight out of a book. By November, I had observed a month of sobriety, a month without going anywhere near Plaza Real to beg a glimpse of Clara through the window. The merit, I must confess, was not altogether mine. Business in the bookshop was picking up, and my father and I had more on our hands than we could juggle.
'At this rate we'll have to hire another person to help us find the orders,' my father remarked. 'What we really need is someone very special, half detective, half poet, someone who won't charge much or be afraid to tackle the impossible.'
'I think I have the right candidate,' I said.
I found Fermin Romero de Torres in his usual lodgings below the arches of Calle Fernando. The beggar was putting together the front page of the Monday paper from bits he had rescued from a waste bin. The lead story went on about the greatness of national public works as yet more proof of the glorious progress of the dictatorship's policies.
'Good God! Another dam!' I heard him cry. 'These fascists will turn us all into a race of saints and frogs.'
'Good morning,' I said quietly. 'Do you remember me?'
The beggar raised his head, and a wonderful smile suddenly lit up his face.
'Do mine eyes deceive me? How are things with you, my friend? You'll accept a swig of red wine, I hope?'
'It's on me today,' I said. 'Are you hungry?'
'Well, I wouldn't say no to a good plate of seafood, but I'll eat anything that's thrown at me.'
On our way to the bookshop, Fermin Romero de Torres filled me in on all manner of escapades he had devised during the last weeks to avoid the Security Services, and in particular one Inspector Fumero, his nemesis, with whom he appeared to have a running battle.
'Fumero?' I asked. That was the name of the soldier who had murdered Clara Barcelo's father in Montjuic Castle at the outbreak of the war.
The little man nodded fearfully, turning pale. He looked famished and dirty, and he stank from months of living on the streets. The poor fellow had no idea where I was taking him, and I noticed a certain apprehension, a growing anxiety that he tried to disguise with incessant chatter. When we arrived at the shop, he gave me a troubled look.
'Please come in. This is my father's bookshop. I'd like to introduce you to him.'
The beggar hunched himself up, a bundle of grime and nerves. 'No, no, I wouldn't hear of it. I don't look presentable, and this is a classy establishment. I would embarrass you. . . .'
My father put his head around the door, glanced at the beggar, and then looked at me out of the corner of his eye.
'Dad, this is Fermin Romero de Torres.'
'At your service,' said the beggar, almost shaking.
My father smiled at him calmly and stretched out his hand. The beggar didn't dare take it, mortified by his appearance and the filth that covered his skin.
'Listen, I think it's best if I go away and leave you,' he stammered.