'I'll take your word for it, and now I'll be off. Thirty-two blank minds await me.'
Professor Velazquez winked at me and disappeared into the lecture room. I didn't know where to look.
'Listen, Bea, about that insult, I promise I-'
'I was only teasing you, Daniel. I know that was childish nonsense, and besides, Tomas gave you a good enough beating.'
'It still hurts.'
Bea's smile looked like a peace offering, or at least an offer of a truce.
'Besides, you were right, I'm a bit stuck up and sometimes a little vain,' she said. 'You don't like me much, do you, Daniel?'
The question took me completely by surprise. Disarmed, I realized how easily you can lose all animosity towards someone you've deemed your enemy as soon as that person stops behaving as such.
'No, that's not true.'
'Tomas says it's not that you don't like me, it's that you can't stand my father and you make me pay for it, because you don't dare face up to him. I don't blame you. No one dares cross my father.'
I felt the blood drain from my cheeks, but after a few seconds I found myself smiling and nodding. 'Anyone would say Tomas knows me better than I know myself.'
'I wouldn't put it past him. My brother knows us all inside out, only he never says anything. But if he ever decides to open his mouth, the whole world will collapse. He's very fond of you, you know.'
I raised my shoulders and looked down.
'He's always talking about you, and about your father and the bookshop, and this friend you have working with you. Tomas says he's a genius waiting to be discovered. Sometimes it's as if he considers you his real family, instead of the one he has at home.'
My eyes met hers: hard, frank, fearless. I did not know what to say, so I just smiled. I felt she was ensnaring me with her honesty, and I looked down at the courtyard.
'I didn't know you studied here.'
'It's my first year.'
'Literature?'
'My father thinks science is not for the weaker sex.'
'Of course. Too many numbers.'
'I don't care, because what I like is reading. Besides, you meet interesting people here.'
'Like Professor Velazquez?'
Bea gave me a wry smile. 'I might be in my first year, but I know enough to see them coming, Daniel. Especially men of his sort.'
I wondered what sort I was.
'Besides, Professor Velazquez is a good friend of my father's. They both belong to the Society for the Protection and Promotion of Spanish Operetta.'
I tried to look impressed. 'A noble calling. And how's your boyfriend, Lieutenant Cascos Buendia?'
Her smile left her. 'Pablo will be here on leave in three weeks.'
'You must be happy.'
'Very. He's a great guy, though I can imagine what you must think of him.'
I doubt it, I thought. Bea watched me, looking slightly tense. I was about to change the subject, but my tongue got ahead of me.
Tomas says you're getting married and you're going off to live in El Ferrol.'
She nodded without blinking. 'As soon as Pablo finishes his military service.'
'You must be feeling impatient,' I said, sensing a spiteful note in my voice, an insolent tone that came from God knows where.
'I don't mind, really. His family has property out there, a couple of shipyards, and Pablo is going to be in charge of one of them. He has a great talent for leadership.'
'It shows.'
Bea forced a smile. 'Besides, I've seen quite enough of Barcelona, after all these years. . ..' Her eyes looked tired and sad.
'I hear El Ferrol is a fascinating place. Full of life. And the seafood is supposed to be fabulous, especially the spider crabs.'
Bea sighed, shaking her head. She looked as if she wanted to cry with anger but was too proud. Instead she laughed calmly.
'After ten years you still enjoy insulting me, don't you, Daniel? Go on, then, don't hold back. It's my fault for thinking that perhaps we could be friends, or pretend to be, but I suppose I'm not as good as my brother. I'm sorry I've wasted your time.'
She turned around and started walking down the corridor that led to the library. I saw her move away along the black and white tiles, her shadow cutting through the curtains of light that fell from the gallery windows.
'Bea, wait.'
I cursed myself and ran after her. I stopped her halfway down the corridor, grabbing her by the arm. She threw me a burning look.
'I'm sorry. But you're wrong: it's not your fault, it's mine. I'm the one who isn't as good as your brother. And if I've insulted you, it's because I'm jealous of that idiot boyfriend of yours and because I'm angry to think that someone like you would follow him to El Ferrol. It might as well be the Congo.'
'Daniel 'You're wrong about me, because we can be friends if you let me try, now that you know how worthless I am. And you're wrong about Barcelona, too, because you may think you've seen everything, but I can guarantee that's not true. If you'll allow me, I can prove it to you.'
I saw a smile light up and a slow, silent tear fall down her cheek.
'You'd better be right,' she said. 'Because if you're not, I'll tell my brother, and he'll pull your head off like a stopper.'
I held out my hand to her. 'That sounds fair. Friends?'
She offered me hers..
'What time do your classes finish on Friday?' I asked.
She hesitated for a moment. 'At five.'
'I'll be waiting for you in the cloister at five o'clock sharp. And before dark I'll prove to you that there's something in Barcelona you haven't seen yet, and that you can't go off to El Ferrol with that idiot. I don't believe you love him. If you go, the memory of this city will pursue you and you'll die of sadness.'
'You seem very sure of yourself, Daniel.'
I, who was never even sure what the time was, nodded with the conviction of the ignorant. I stood there watching her walk away down that endless corridor until her silhouette blended with the darkness. I asked myself what on earth I had done.
The Fortuny hat shop, or what was left of it, languished at the foot of a narrow, miserable-looking building blackened by soot in Ronda de San Antonio next to Plaza de Goya. You could still read the letters engraved on the filthy window, and a sign in the shape of a bowler hat still hung above the shop front, promising designs made to measure and the latest novelties from Paris. The door was secured with a padlock that had seen at least a decade of undisturbed service. I pressed my forehead against the glass, trying to peek into the murky interior.
'If you've come about the rental, you're late,' spat a voice behind my back. 'The manager has already left.'
The woman who was speaking to me must have been about sixty and wore the national costume of all pious widows. A couple of rollers stuck out under the pink scarf that covered her hair, and her padded slippers matched her flesh-coloured knee-high stockings. I assumed she was the caretaker of the building.
'Is the shop for rent?'
Isn't that why you've come?'
'Not really, but you never know, I might be interested.'
The caretaker frowned, debating whether to grant me the benefit of the doubt. I slipped on my trademark angelic smile.
'How long has the shop been closed?'
'For a good twelve years, since the old man died.'
'Senor Fortuny? Did you know him?'
'I've been here for forty-eight years, young man.'
'So perhaps you also knew Senor Fortuny's son.'
'Julian? Well, of course.'
I took the burned photograph out of my pocket and showed it to her. 'Do you think you'd be able to tell me whether the young man in the photograph is Julian Carax?'
The caretaker looked at me rather suspiciously. She took the photograph and stared at it.
'Do you recognize him?'
'Carax was his mother's maiden name,' the caretaker explained in a disapproving tone. 'This is Julian, yes. I remember him being very fair, but here, in the photograph, his hair looks darker.'
'Could you tell me who the girl is?'
'And who is asking?'
'I'm sorry, my name is Daniel Sempere. I'm trying to find out about Senor Carax, about Julian.'
'Julian went to Paris, 'round about 1918 or 1919. His father wanted to shove him in the army, you see. I think the mother took him with her so that he could escape from all that, poor kid. Senor Fortuny was left alone, in the attic apartment.'
'Do you know when Julian returned to Barcelona?'
The caretaker looked at me but didn't speak for a while.
'Don't you know? Julian died that same year in Paris.'
'Excuse me?'
'I said Julian passed away. In Paris. Soon after he got there. He would have done better joining the army.'
'May I ask you how you know that?'
'How do you think? Because his father told me.'
I nodded slowly. 'I see. Did he say what he died of?'
'Quite frankly, the old man never gave me any details. Once, not long after Julian left, a letter arrived for him, and when I mentioned it to his father, he told me his son had died and if anything else came for him, I should throw it away. Why are you looking at me like that?'
'Senor Fortuny lied to you. Julian didn't die in 1919.'
'Say that again?'
'Julian lived in Paris until at least 1935, and then he returned to Barcelona.'
The caretaker's face lit up. 'So Julian is here, in Barcelona? Where?'
I nodded again, hoping she would be encouraged to tell me more.
'Holy Mary . . . what wonderful news. Well, if he's still alive, that is. He was such a sweet child, a bit strange and given to daydreaming, that's true, but there was something about him that won you over. He wouldn't have been much good as a soldier, you could tell that a mile off. My Isabelita really liked him. Imagine, for a while I even thought they'd end up getting married. Kid stuff. . . . May I see that photograph again?'
I handed the photo back to her. The caretaker gazed at it as if it were a lucky charm, a return ticket to her youth. 'It's strange, you know, it's as if he were here right now . . . and that mean old bastard saying he was dead. I must say, I wonder why God sends some people into this world. And what happened to Julian in Paris? I'm sure he got rich. I always thought Julian would be wealthy one day.'
'Not exactly. He became a writer.'
'He wrote stories?'
'Something like that.'
'For the radio? Oh, how lovely. Well, it doesn't surprise me, you know. As a child he used to tell stories to the local kids. In the summer sometimes my Isabelita and her cousins would go up to the roof terrace at night and listen to him. They said he never told the same story twice. But it's true that they were all about dead people and ghosts. As I say, he was a bit of an odd child. Although, with a father like that, the odd thing was that he wasn't completely nuts. I'm not surprised that his wife left him in the end, because he was a nasty piece of work. Listen: I never meddle in people's affairs, everything's fine by me, but that man wasn't a good person. In a block of apartments nothing's secret in the end. He beat her, you know? You always heard screams coming from their apartment, and more than once the police had to come round. I can understand that sometimes a husband has to beat his wife to get her to respect him, I'm not saying they shouldn't; there's a lot of tarts about, and young girls are not brought up the way they used to be. But this one, well, he liked to beat her for the hell of it, if you see what I mean. The only friend that poor woman had was a young girl, Vicenteta, who lived in 4-2. Sometimes the poor woman would take shelter in Vicenteta's apartment, to get away from her husband's beatings. And she told her things....'
'What sort of things?'
The caretaker took on a confidential manner, raising an eyebrow and glancing sideways right and left. 'Like the boy wasn't the hatter's.'
'Julian? Do you mean to say Julian wasn't Fortuny's son?'
'That's what the Frenchwoman told Vicenteta, I don't know whether it was out of spite or heaven knows why. The girl told me years later, when they didn't live here anymore.'
'So who was Julian's real father?'
'The Frenchwoman never said. Perhaps she didn't even know. You know what foreigners are like.'