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I removed my hand and looked down, defeated. I thought Bea was smiling, but I preferred not to make sure.
“Considering he’s so quiet, your brother is turning out to be quite a bigmouth. What else does the newsreel say about me?”
“He says that for years you were in love with an older woman and that the experience left you brokenhearted.”
“All I had broken was a lip and my pride.”
“Tomás says you haven’t been out with any other girl because you compare them all with that woman.”
Good old Tomás and his hidden blows. “Her name is Clara,” I proffered.
“I know. Clara Barceló.”
“Do you know her?”
“Everyone knows a Clara Barceló. The name is the least of it.”
We fell silent for a while, watching the fire crackle.
“After I left you, I wrote a letter to Pablo,” said Bea.
I swallowed hard. “To your lieutenant boyfriend? What for?”
Bea took an envelope out of her blouse and showed it to me. It was closed and sealed.
“In the letter I tell him I want us to get married very soon, in a month’s time, if possible, and that I want to leave Barcelona forever.”
Almost trembling, I faced her impenetrable eyes.
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because I want you to tell me whether I should send it or not. That’s why I’ve asked you to come here today, Daniel.”
I examined the envelope that she twirled in her hand like a playing card.
“Look at me,” she said.
I raised my eyes and met her gaze. I didn’t know what to answer. Bea lowered her eyes and walked away toward the end of the gallery. A door led to the marble balustrade that opened onto the inner courtyard of the house. I watched her silhouette fade into the rain. I went after her and stopped her, snatching the envelope from her hands. The rain beat down on her face, sweeping away the tears and the anger. I led her back into the mansion and to the heat of the blaze. She avoided my eyes. I took the envelope and threw it into the flames. We watched the letter breaking up among the hot coals and the pages evaporating in spirals of smoke, one by one. Bea knelt down next to me, with tears in her eyes. I embraced her and felt her breath on my throat.
“Don’t let me fall, Daniel,” she murmured.
The wisest man I ever knew, Fermín Romero de Torres, had told me that there is no experience in life comparable to the first time a man undresses a woman. For all his wisdom, though he had not lied to me, he hadn’t told me all the truth either. He hadn’t told me anything about that strange trembling of the hands that turned every button, every zip, into a superhuman challenge. Nor had he told me about that bewitchment of pale, tremulous skin, that first brush of the lips, or about the mirage that seemed to shimmer in every pore of the skin. He didn’t tell me any of that because he knew that the miracle happened only once and, when it did, it spoke in a language of secrets that, were they disclosed, would vanish again forever. A thousand times I’ve wanted to recover that first afternoon with Bea in the rambling house of Avenida del Tibidabo, when the sound of the rain washed the whole world away with it. A thousand times I’ve wished to return and lose myself in a memory from which I can rescue only one image stolen from the heat of the flames: Bea, naked and glistening with rain, lying by the fire, with open eyes that have followed me since that day. I leaned over her and passed the tips of my fingers over her belly. Bea lowered her eyelids and smiled, confident and strong.
“Do what you like to me,” she whispered.
She was seventeen, her entire life shining on her lips.
·29·
DARKNESS ENVELOPED US IN BLUE SHADOW AS WE LEFT THE mansion. The storm was receding, now barely an echo of cold rain. I wanted to return the key to Bea, but her eyes told me she wanted me to be the one to keep it. We strolled down toward Paseo de San Gervasio, hoping to find a taxi or a bus. We walked in silence, holding hands and hardly looking at each other.
“I won’t be able to see you again until Tuesday,” Bea said in a tremulous voice, as if she suddenly doubted my desire to see her again.
“I’ll be waiting for you here,” I said.
I took for granted that all my meetings with Bea would take place between the walls of that rambling old house, that the rest of the city did not belong to us. It even seemed to me that the firmness of her touch decreased as we moved away, that her strength and warmth diminished with every step we took. When we reached the avenue, we realized that the streets were almost deserted.
“We won’t find anything here,” said Bea. “We’d better go down along Balmes.”
