The Shadow of the Wind (33 page)

“Had you ever done this before, Daniel?”

“In dreams.”

“Seriously.”

“No. Had you?”

“No. Not even with Clara Barceló?”

I laughed. Probably at myself. “What do you know about Clara Barceló?”

“Nothing.”

“I know less than nothing,” I said.

“I don't believe you.”

I leaned over her and looked into her eyes. “I have never done this with anybody.”

Bea smiled. My hand found its way between her thighs, and I threw myself on her, searching her lips, convinced by now that cannibalism was the supreme incarnation of wisdom.

“Daniel?” said Bea in a tiny voice.

“What?” I asked.

The answer never came to her lips. Suddenly a shaft of cold air whistled under the door, and in that endless moment before the wind blew out all the candles, our eyes met and we felt that the passion of that moment had been shattered. An instant was enough for us to know that there was somebody on the other side of the door. I saw fear sketched on Bea's face, and a second later we were covered in darkness. The bang on the door came later. Brutal, like a steel fist hammering on the door, almost pulling it off its hinges.

I felt Bea's body jump in the dark, and I put my arms around her. We moved to the other end of the room just before the second blow hit the door, throwing it with tremendous force against the wall. Bea screamed and shrank back against me. For a moment all I could see was the blue mist that crept up from the corridor and the snakes of smoke from the candles as they were blown out, rising in a spiral. The doorframe cast fanglike shadows, and I thought I saw an angular figure in the threshold of darkness.

I peered into the corridor, fearing, or perhaps hoping, that I would find only a stranger, a tramp who had ventured into the ruined mansion looking for shelter on an unpleasant night. But there was no one there, only ribbons of blue air that seemed to blow in through the windows. Huddled in a corner of the room, trembling, Bea whispered my name.

“There's nobody here,” I said. “Perhaps it was a gust of wind.”

“The wind doesn't beat on doors, Daniel. Let's go.”

I went back to the room and gathered up our clothes.

“Here, get dressed. We'll go and have a look.”

“We'd better leave.”

“Yes, right away. I just want to check one thing.”

We dressed hurriedly in the dark. In a matter of seconds, we could see our breath forming puffs in the air. I picked up one of the candles from the floor and lit it again. A draft of cold air glided through the house, as if someone had opened doors and windows.

“You see? It's the wind.”

Bea shook her head but kept silent. We made our way back toward the sitting room, shielding the flame with our hands. Bea followed close behind me, holding her breath.

“What are we looking for, Daniel?”

“It'll only take a minute.”

“No, let's leave right away.”

“All right.”

We turned to walk toward the exit, and it was then that I noticed. The large sculpted door at the end of a corridor, which I had tried unsuccessfully to open, was ajar.

“What's the matter?” asked Bea.

“Wait for me here.”

“Daniel, please…”

I walked down the corridor, holding the candle that flickered in gusts of cold air. Bea sighed and followed me reluctantly. I stopped in front of the door. Marble steps were just visible, descending into the darkness. I started to go down them. Petrified, Bea stood at the entrance holding the candle.

“Please, Daniel, let's go now….”

I descended, step by step, to the bottom of the staircase. The ghostly aura from the candle that was raised behind me seemed to scratch at the shape of a rectangular room, made of bare stone walls that were covered in crucifixes. The icy cold in that chamber took my breath away. Before me stood a marble slab, and on top of it I saw what looked like two similar white objects in different sizes, lined up one next to the other. They reflected the tremor of the candle with more intensity than the rest of the room, and I guessed they were made of lacquered wood. I took one more step forward, and only then did I understand. The two objects were white coffins. One of them was scarcely two feet long. I felt a shiver. It was a child's sarcophagus. I was in a crypt.

Without realizing what I was doing, I got closer to the marble stone until I was near enough to stretch out my hand and touch it. I then noticed that on each coffin a cross and a name had been carved. A blanket of ash obscured them. I put my hand on one of the coffins, the larger one. Slowly, almost in a trance, without stopping to think what I was doing, I brushed off the ashes that covered the lid. I could barely read the words in the dim red candlelight.

†

PENÉLOPE ALDAYA

1902–1919

I froze. Something or somebody was moving about in the dark. I could feel the cold air sliding down my skin, and only then did I retreat a few steps.

“Get out of here,” murmured a voice in the shadows.

I recognized him immediately. Laín Coubert. The voice of the devil.

I charged up the stairs, and as soon as I reached the ground floor, I grabbed Bea by the arm and dragged her as fast as I could toward the exit. We had lost the candle and were running blindly. Bea was frightened and unable to comprehend my sudden alarm. She hadn't seen anything. She hadn't heard anything. I didn't pause to give her an explanation. I expected that at any moment something would jump out from the shadows and block our way, but the main door was waiting for us at the end of the corridor, forming a rectangle of light around the cracks in the doorframe.

“It's locked,” Bea whispered.

I felt my pockets for the key. I turned my head for a fraction of a second and was sure that two shining points were slowly advancing toward us from the other end of the passageway. Eyes. My fingers found the key. I inserted it desperately into the lock, opened the door, and pushed Bea out roughly. Bea must have sensed the fear in me, because she rushed toward the gate in the garden and didn't stop until we were both on the pavement of Avenida del Tibidabo, breathless and covered in cold sweat.

“What happened down there, Daniel? Was there someone there?”

“No.”

“You look pale.”

“I've always been pale. Come on. Let's go.”

“What about the key?”

I had left it inside, stuck in the lock. I felt no desire to go back and look for it.

“I think I dropped it on the way out. We'll look for it some other day.”

We walked briskly away down the avenue, crossed over to the other side, and did not slow down until we were a good hundred yards from the mansion and its outline could hardly be distinguished in the dark. It was then I noticed that my hand was still stained with ashes. I was thankful for the mantle of the night, for it concealed the tears of terror running down my cheeks.

 

W
E DESCENDED
C
ALLE
B
ALMES TO
P
LAZA
N
ÚÑEZ DE
A
RCE, WHERE WE
found a solitary taxi. As we drove down Balmes to Consejo de Ciento, we hardly spoke a word. Bea held my hand, and a couple of times I caught her gazing at me with glassy, impenetrable eyes. I leaned over to kiss her, but she didn't part her lips.

“When will I see you again?”

“I'll call you tomorrow, or the next,” she said.

“Do you promise?”

She nodded.

“You can call me at home or at the bookshop. It's the same number. You have it, don't you?”

She nodded again. I asked the driver to stop for a moment on the corner of Muntaner and Diputación. I offered to see Bea to her front door, but she refused and walked away without letting me kiss her again, or even brush her hand. She started to run as I looked on from the taxi. The lights were on in the Aguilars' apartment, and I could clearly see my friend Tomás watching me from his bedroom window, where we had spent so many afternoons together chatting or playing chess. I waved at him, forcing a smile that he probably could not see. He didn't return the greeting. He remained static, glued to the windowpane, gazing at me coldly. A few seconds later, he moved away and the window went dark. He was waiting for us, I thought.

W
HEN
I
GOT HOME,
I
FOUND THE REMAINS OF A DINNER FOR
two on the table. My father had already gone to bed, and I wondered whether, by chance, he had plucked up the courage to invite Merceditas around for dinner. I tiptoed off toward my room and went in without turning on the light. The moment I sat on the edge of the mattress, I realized there was someone else in the room, lying on the bed in the dark like a dead body with his hands crossed over his chest. I felt an icy spasm in my stomach, but soon I recognized the snoring, and the profile of that incomparable nose. I turned on the light on the bedside table and found Fermín Romero de Torres lying on the bedspread, lost in a blissful dream and moaning gently with pleasure. I sighed, and the sleeper opened his eyes. When he saw me, he looked surprised. He was obviously expecting some other company. He rubbed his eyes and looked about him, taking in his surroundings more closely.

“I hope I didn't scare you. Bernarda says that when I'm asleep, I look like a Spanish Boris Karloff.”

“What are you doing on my bed, Fermín?”

He half closed his eyes with longing.

“Dreaming of Carole Lombard. We were in Tangier, in some Turkish baths, and I was covering her in oil, the sort they sell for babies' bottoms. Have you ever covered a woman with oil, from head to toe, completely and meticulously?”

“Fermín, it's half past midnight, and I'm dead on my feet.”

“Please forgive me, Daniel. It's just that your father insisted that I come up and have dinner with him, and afterward I felt terribly drowsy. Beef has a narcotic effect on me, you see. Your father suggested that I lie down here for a while, insisting that you wouldn't mind….”

“And I don't mind, Fermín. It's just that you've caught me by surprise. Keep the bed and go back to Carole Lombard; she must be waiting for you. And get under the sheets. It's a foul night, and if you stay on top you'll catch something. I'll go to the dining room.”

Fermín nodded meekly. The bruises on his face were beginning to swell up, and his head, covered with two days of stubble and that sparse hair, looked like some ripe fruit fallen from a tree. I took a blanket from the chest of drawers and handed another one to Fermín. Then I turned off the light and went back to the dining room, where my father's favorite armchair awaited me. I wrapped myself in the blanket and curled up, as best I could, convinced that I wouldn't sleep a wink. The image of the two white coffins in the dark was branded on my mind. I closed my eyes and did my best to delete the sight. In its place I conjured up the image of Bea in the bathroom, lying naked on the blankets, in candlelight. As I abandoned myself to these thoughts, it seemed to me that I could hear the distant murmur of the sea, and I wondered whether, without my knowing it, I had already succumbed to sleep. Perhaps I was sailing toward Tangier. Soon I realized that the sound was only Fermín's snoring. A moment later the world was turned off. In all my life, I've never slept so well or so deeply as that night.

 

MORNING CAME, AND IT WAS POURING.
S
TREETS WERE FLOODED, AND
the rain beat angrily against the windows. The telephone rang at seven-thirty. I jumped out of the armchair to answer, with my heart in my mouth. Fermín, in a bathrobe and slippers, and my father, holding the coffeepot, exchanged that look I was already growing used to.

“Bea?” I whispered into the receiver, with my back to them.

I thought I heard a sigh on the line.

“Bea, is that you?”

There was no answer, and a few seconds later the line went dead. I stayed there for a minute, staring at the telephone, hoping it would ring again.

“They'll call back, Daniel. Come and have some breakfast now,” said my father.

She'll call again later, I told myself. Someone must have caught her phoning. It couldn't be easy to break Mr. Aguilar's curfew. There was no reason to be alarmed. With this and other excuses, I dragged myself to the table to pretend I was going to have breakfast with Fermín and my father. It might have been the rain, but the food had lost all its flavor.

It rained all morning. Shortly after we opened the bookshop, there was a general power cut in the whole neighborhood that lasted until noon.

“That's all we needed,” sighed my father.

At three the first leaks began. Fermín offered to go up to Merceditas's apartment to borrow some buckets, dishes, or any other hollow receptacle. My father strictly forbade him to go. The deluge persisted. To alleviate my nervousness, I told Fermín what had happened the day before, though I kept to myself what I'd seen in the crypt. Fermín listened with fascination, but despite his insistence, I refused to describe to him the consistency, texture, and shape of Bea's breasts. The day wore slowly on.

After dinner, on the pretext of going out to stretch my legs, I left my father reading and walked up to Bea's house. When I got there, I stopped on the corner to look up at the large windows of the apartment. I asked myself what I was doing. Spying, meddling, or making a fool of myself were some of the answers that went through my mind. Even so, as lacking in dignity as in appropriate clothes for such icy weather, I took shelter from the wind in a doorway on the other side of the street for about half an hour, watching the windows and seeing the silhouettes of Mr. Aguilar and his wife as they passed by. But not a trace of Bea.

It was almost midnight when I got back home, shivering with cold and carrying the world on my shoulders. She'll call tomorrow, I told myself a thousand times while I tried to fall asleep. Bea didn't call the next day. Or the next. She didn't call that whole week, the longest and the last of my life.

 

I
N SEVEN DAYS' TIME,
I
WOULD BE DEAD.