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“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 Fermín.
“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, who calls himself Laín 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 Penélope Aldaya is at the center of all this business, and she’s the person we know least about,” Fermín remarked.
“I don’t think I’d be able to 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 Julián told me, which wasn’t much. The only other person who I heard mention Penélope’s name a few times was Jacinta Coronado.”
“Jacinta Coronado?”
“Penélope’s governess. She had raised Jorge and Penélope. She loved them madly, especially Penélope. 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 Julián 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 Penélope. She still talks about her….”
“Are you still in touch with Jacinta?”
“I sometimes visit her in the Santa Lucía hospice. She doesn’t have anyone. For reasons that 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.”
Fermín and I exchanged looks.
“What about Penélope? Hasn’t she ever visited Jacinta?”
Father Fernando’s eyes grew dark and impenetrable. “Nobody knows what happened to Penélope. 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 Penélope also go to Argentina, with the rest of the Aldayas?” I asked.
The priest shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know. Nobody ever saw Penélope again or heard anything about her after 1919.”
“The year Carax left for Paris,” Fermín observed.
“You must promise me that you’re not going to bother this poor old lady and make her unearth painful memories.”
“Who do you take us for, Father?” asked Fermín with annoyance.
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, Fermín 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 go with 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 toward the real world, as if he were afraid he would evaporate if he ventured out a few steps farther. I wondered when Father Fernando had last left the school grounds.
“I was very sad when I heard that Julián had died,” he said softly. “Despite everything that happened afterward and the fact that we grew apart as time went by, we were good friends: Miquel, Aldaya, Julián, 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·
