The Shadow of the Wind (31 page)

'Are you feeling all right, Senor Romero de Torres?'

The sudden appearance of Fumero in Father Fernando Ramos's narrative had stunned me, but the effect on Fermin was devastating. He looked white as a sheet and his hands shook.

'A sudden drop in my blood pressure,' Fermin improvised in a tiny voice. 'This Catalan climate can be hell for us southerners.'

'May I offer you a glass of water?' asked the priest in a worried tone.

'If Your Grace wouldn't mind. And perhaps a chocolate, for the glucose, you know . . .'

The priest poured him a glass of water, which Fermin drank greedily.

'All I have are some eucalyptus sweets. Would they be of any help?'

'God bless you.'

Fermin swallowed a fistful of sweets and after a while seemed to recover his natural pallor.

'This boy, the son of the caretaker who heroically lost his scrotum defending the colonies, are you sure his name was Fumero, Francisco Javier Fumero?'

'Yes. Quite sure. Do you know him?'

'No,' we intoned in unison.

Father Fernando frowned. 'It wouldn't have surprised me. Regrettably, Francisco Javier has ended up being a notorious character.'

'We're not sure we understand you.

'You understand me perfectly. Francisco Javier Fumero is chief inspector of the Barcelona Crime Squad and is widely known. His reputation has even reached those of us who never leave this establishment, and I'd say that when you heard his name, you shrank a couple of inches.'

'Now that you mention it, Your Excellency, the name does ring a bell.. . .'

Father Fernando looked sidelong at us. 'This young man isn't the son of Julian Carax. Am I right?'

'Spiritual son, Your Eminency. Morally, that has more weight.'

'What kind of mess are you two in? Who has sent you?'

At that point I was certain we were about to be kicked out of the priest's office, and I decided to silence Fermin and, for once, play the honesty card.

'You're right, Father. Julian Carax isn't my father. But nobody has sent us. Years ago I happened to come across a book by Carax, a book that was thought to have disappeared, and from that time on, I have tried to discover more about him and clarify the circumstances of his death. Senor Romero de Torres has helped me—'

'What book?'

'The Shadow of the Wind. Have you read it?'

'I've read all of Julian's novels.'

'Have you kept them?'

The priest shook his head.

'May I ask what you did with them?'

'Years ago someone came into my room and set fire to them.'

'Do you suspect anyone?'

'Of course. I suspect Fumero. Isn't that why you're here?'

Fermin and I exchanged puzzled looks.

'Inspector Fumero? Why would he want to burn the books?'

'Who else would? During the last year we spent together at school, Francisco Javier tried to kill Julian with his father's shotgun. If Miquel hadn't stopped him . . .'

'Why did he try to kill him? Julian had been his only friend.'

'Francisco Javier was obsessed with Penelope Aldaya. Nobody knew this. I don't think Penelope had even noticed the boy's existence. He kept the secret for years. Apparently he used to follow Julian. I think one day he saw him kiss her. I don't know. What I do know is that he tried to kill him in broad daylight. Miquel Moliner, who had never trusted Fumero, threw himself on him and stopped him at the last moment. The hole made by the bullet is still visible by the entrance. Every time I go past it, I remember that day.'

'What happened to Fumero?'

'He and his family were thrown out of the place. I think Francisco Javier was sent to a boarding school for a while. We heard no more about him until a couple of years later, when his mother died in a hunting accident. There was no such accident. Francisco Javier Fumero is a murderer.'

'If I were to tell you . . .' mumbled Fermin.

'It wouldn't be a bad thing if one of you did tell me something, but something true for a change.'

'We can tell you that Fumero was not the person who burned your books.'

'Who was it, then?'

'In all likelihood it was a man whose face is disfigured by burns; a man who calls himself Lain Coubert.'

'Isn't that the one. . . ?'

I nodded. 'The name of one of Carax's characters. The devil.'

Father Fernando leaned back in his armchair, almost as confused as we were.

'What does seem increasingly clear is that Penelope Aldaya is at the centre of all this business, and she's the person we know least about,' Fermin remarked.

'I don't think I can help you there. I hardly ever saw her, and then only from a distance, two or three times. What I know about her is what Julian told me, which wasn't much. The only other person who I heard mention Penelope's name a few times was Jacinta Coronado.'

'Jacinta Coronado?'

'Penelope's governess. She raised Jorge and Penelope. She loved them madly, especially Penelope. Sometimes she would come to the school to collect Jorge, because Don Ricardo Aldaya wanted his children to be watched over at all times by some member of his household. Jacinta was an angel. She had heard that both Julian and I came from modest families, so she would always bring us afternoon snacks because she thought we went hungry. I would tell her that my father was the cook and not to worry, for I was never without something to eat. But she insisted. Sometimes I'd wait and talk to her. She was the kindest person I've ever met. She had no children, or any boyfriend that I knew of. She was alone in the world and had devoted her life to the Aldaya children. She simply adored Penelope. She still talks about her....'

'Are you still in touch with Jacinta?'

'I sometimes visit her in the Santa Lucia hospice. She doesn't have anyone. For reasons we cannot comprehend, the Good Lord doesn't always reward us during our lifetime. Jacinta is now a very old woman and is as alone as she has always been.'

Fermin and I exchanged looks.

'What about Penelope? Hasn't she ever visited her?'

Father Fernando's eyes grew dark and impenetrable. 'Nobody knows what happened to Penelope. That girl was Jacinta's life. When the Aldayas left for America and she lost her, she lost everything.'

'Why didn't they take her with them? Did Penelope go to Argentina with the rest of the Aldayas?' I asked.

The priest shrugged his shoulders. 'I don't know. Nobody ever saw Penelope again or heard anything about her after 1919.'

'The year Carax left for Paris,' Fermin observed.

'You must promise me that you're not going to bother this poor old lady and stir up painful memories for her.'

'Who do you take us for, Father?' asked Fermin, annoyed.

Suspecting that he would get no more from us, Father Fernando made us swear to him that we would keep him informed about any new discoveries we made. To reassure him, Fermin insisted on swearing on a New Testament that lay on the priest's desk.

'Leave the Gospels alone. Your word is enough for me.'

'You don't let anything pass you, do you, Father? You're sharp as a nail.'

'Come, let me accompany you to the door.'

He led us through the garden until we reached the spiked gate and then stopped at a reasonable distance from the exit, gazing at the street that wound its way down towards the real world, as if he were afraid he might evaporate if he ventured out a few steps further. I wondered when Father Fernando had last left the school grounds.

'I was very sad when I heard that Julian had died,' he said softly. 'Despite everything that happened afterwards and the fact that we grew apart as time went by, we were good friends: Miquel, Aldaya, Julian, and myself. Even Fumero. I always thought we were going to be inseparable, but life must know things that we don't know. I've never had friends like those again, and I don't imagine I ever will. I hope you find what you're looking for, Daniel.'

26

It was almost midmorning when we reached Paseo de la Bonanova, wrapped in our own thoughts. I had little doubt that Fermin's were largely devoted to the sinister appearance of Inspector Fumero in the story. I glanced over at him and noticed that he seemed consumed by anxiety. A veil of dark red clouds bled across the sky, punctured by splinters of light the colour of fallen leaves.

'If we don't hurry, we're going to get caught in a downpour,' I said.

'Not yet. Those clouds look like night time, like a bruise. They're the sort that wait.'

'Don't tell me you're also an expert on clouds, Fermin.'

'Living on the streets has unexpected educational side effects. Listen, just thinking about this Fumero business has stirred my juices. Would you object to a stop at the bar in Plaza de Sarria to polish off two well-endowed omelette sandwiches, plus trimmings?'

We set off towards the square, where a knot of old folks hovered around the local pigeon community, their lives reduced to a ritual of spreading crumbs and waiting. We found ourselves a table near the entrance, and Fermin proceeded to wolf down the two sandwiches, his and mine, a pint of beer, two chocolate bars, and a triple coffee heavily laced with rum and sugar. For dessert he had a Sugus sweet. A man sitting at the next table glanced at Fermin over his newspaper, probably thinking the same thing I was.

'I don't see how you fit it all in, Fermin.'

'In my family we've always had a speedy metabolism. My sister Jesusa, God rest her soul, was capable of eating a six-egg omelette with blood sausage in the middle of the afternoon and then tucking in like a Cossack at night. Poor thing. She was just like me, you know? Same face and same classic figure; rather on the lean side. A doctor from Caceres once told my mother that the Romero de Torres family was the missing link between man and the hammerhead, for ninety per cent of our organism is cartilage, mainly concentrated in the nose and the outer ear. Jesusa was often mistaken for me in the village, because she never grew breasts and began to shave before I did. She died of consumption when she was twenty-two, a virgin to the end and secretly in love with a sanctimonious priest who, when he met her in the street, always said, "Hello, Fermin, you're becoming quite a dashing young man." Life's ironies.'

'Do you miss them?'

'The family?'

Fermin shrugged his shoulders, caught in a nostalgic smile.

'What do I know? Few things are more deceptive than memories. Look at the priest. . . . And you? Do you miss your mother?'

I looked down. 'A lot.'

'Do you know what I remember most about mine?' Fermin asked. 'Her smell. She always smelled clean, like a loaf of sweet bread. It didn't matter if she'd spent the day working in the fields or was wearing the same old rags she'd worn all week. She always smelled of the best things in this world. Mind you, she was pretty uncouth. She could swear like a trooper, but she smelled like a fairy tale princess. Or at least that's what I thought. What about you? What is it you remember most about your mother, Daniel?'

I hesitated for a moment, clawing at words my lips couldn't shape.

'Nothing. For years now I haven't been able to remember my mother. I can't remember what her face was like, or her voice or her smell. I lost them all the day I discovered Julian Carax, and they haven't come back.'