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We nodded.
“Sorry to ’ave to announce, on behalf of the management ’ere, that there’s not a scrap of ’am left. I can offer black, white, or mixedbutifarra, meatballs, orchistorra. Top of the line, extra fresh. I also ’ave pickled sardines, if yer folks can’t consume meat products for reasons of religious conscience. It being Friday…”
“I’ll be fine with a white coffee, really,” said Bea.
I was starving. “What if you bring two servings of spicy potatoes and some bread, too?”
“Right away, sir. And please, pardon the shortness of supplies. Usually I tend to ’ave everything, even Bolshevik caviar. But s’afternoon, it being the European Cup semifinal, we’ve had a lot of customers. Great game.”
The manager walked away ceremoniously. Bea watched him with amusement.
“Where’s that accent from? Jaén?”
“Much closer: Santa Coloma de Gramanet,” I specified. “You don’t often take the subway, do you?”
“My father says the subway is full of riffraff and that if you’re on your own, the Gypsies feel you up.”
I was about to say something but decided to keep my mouth shut. Bea laughed. As soon as the coffees and the food arrived, I fell on it all with no pretense at refinement. Bea didn’t eat anything. With her hands spread around the steaming cup, she watched me with half a smile, somewhere between curiosity and amazement.
“So what is it you’re going to show me today?”
“A number of things. In fact, what I’m going to show you is part of a story. Didn’t you tell me the other day that what you like to do is read?”
Bea nodded, arching her eyebrows.
“Well, this is a story about books.”
“About books?”
“About accursed books, about the man who wrote them, about a character who broke out of the pages of a novel so that he could burn it, about a betrayal and a lost friendship. It’s a story of love, of hatred, and of the dreams that live in the shadow of the wind.”
“You talk like the jacket blurb of a Victorian novel, Daniel.”
“That’s probably because I work in a bookshop and I’ve seen too many. But this is a true story. As real as the fact that this bread they served us is at least three days old. And, like all true stories, it begins and ends in a cemetery, although not the sort of cemetery you imagine.”
She smiled the way children smile when they’ve been promised a riddle or a conjuror’s trick. “I’m all ears.”
I gulped down the last of my coffee and looked at her for a few moments without saying anything. I thought about how much I wanted to lose myself in those evasive eyes. I thought about the loneliness that would take hold of me that night when I said good-bye to her, once I had run out of tricks or stories to make her stay with me any longer. I thought about how little I had to offer her and how much I wanted from her.
“I can hear your brains clanking, Daniel. What are you planning?”
I began my story with that distant dawn when I awoke and could not remember my mother’s face, and I didn’t stop until I paused to recall the world of shadows I had sensed that very day in the home of Nuria Monfort. Bea listened quietly, making no judgment, drawing no conclusions. I told her about my first visit to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books and about the night I spent readingThe Shadow of the Wind. I told her about my meeting with the faceless man and about the letter signed by Penélope Aldaya that I always carried with me without knowing why. I spoke about how I had never kissed Clara Barceló, or anyone, and of how my hands had trembled when I felt the touch of Nuria Monfort’s lips on my skin, only a few hours before. I told her how until that moment I had not understood that this was a story about lonely people, about absence and loss, and that that was why I had taken refuge in it until it became confused with my own life, like someone who has escaped into the pages of a novel because those whom he needs to love seem nothing more than ghosts inhabiting the mind of a stranger.
“Don’t say anything,” whispered Bea. “Just take me to that place.”
It was pitch dark when we stopped by the front door of the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, in the gloom of Calle Arco del Teatro. I lifted the devil-head knocker and knocked three times. While we waited, sheltering under the arch of the entrance, the cold wind smelled of charcoal. I met Bea’s eyes, so close to mine. She was smiling. Soon we heard light footsteps approaching the door, and then the tired voice of the keeper.
“Who’s there?” asked Isaac.
“It’s Daniel Sempere, Isaac.”
I thought I could hear him swearing under his breath. Then followed the thousand squeaks and groans from the intricate system of locks. Finally the door yielded an inch or two, revealing the vulturine face of Isaac Monfort in candlelight. When he saw me, the keeper sighed and rolled his eyes.
“Stupid of me. I don’t know why I ask,” he said. “Who else could it be at this time of night?”
Isaac was clothed in what seemed like a strange crossbreed of dressing gown, bathrobe, and Russian army coat. The padded slippers perfectly matched his checked wool cap, rather like a professor’s cap, complete with tassel.
“I hope I didn’t get you out of bed,” I said.
