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A closer examination of the carved angels discouraged me from looking any further, and I left the place. I was about to give up my search for a way down to the cellar when, by chance, I came across a tiny door at the other end of the passage, which at first I took for the door of a broom closet. I tested the doorknob, and it gave way instantly. On the other side, a steep staircase plunged into a pool of blackness. A powerful smell of wet earth hit me. It seemed a strangely familiar smell, and as I stood there with my eyes on the black well in front of me, I was seized by a memory I had kept since my childhood, buried behind curtains of fear.
A rainy afternoon on the eastern slope of Montjuïc, looking at the sea through a forest of incomprehensible mausoleums, a forest of crosses and gravestones carved with skulls and faces of children with no lips or eyes, a place that stank of death; and the silhouettes of about twenty adults that I could remember only as black suits that were dripping with rain, and my father’s hand holding mine too tightly, as if by doing so he could stop his weeping, while a priest’s empty words fell into that marble tomb into which three faceless gravediggers pushed a gray coffin. The downpour slithered like melted wax over the coffin, and I thought I heard my mother’s voice calling me from within, begging me to free her from that prison of stone and darkness, but all I could do was tremble and ask my father in a voiceless whisper not to hold my hand so tight, tell him he was hurting me, and that smell of fresh earth, earth of ash and rain, was devouring everything, a smell of death and emptiness.
I opened my eyes and went down the steps almost blindly, because the light from the candle dispelled only an inch or two of darkness. When I reached the bottom, I held the candle up high and looked about me. I found no kitchen, no closet full of dry wood. A narrow passage extended before me, ending in a semicircular chamber. In the chamber stood a figure, its face lined with tears of blood from two hollow eyes, its arms unfolded like wings and a serpent of thorns sprouting from its temples. I felt an icy cold stabbing me in the nape of the neck. At some point I regained my composure and realized I was staring at an effigy of Christ carved in wood on the wall of a chapel. I stepped forward a few yards and beheld a ghostly sight. A dozen naked female torsos were piled up in one corner of the old chapel. Their heads and arms were missing, and they were supported by tripods. Each one was shaped differently, replicating the figures of women of varying ages and constitutions. On their bellies were words written in charcoal: “Isabel, Eugenia, Penélope.” For once my Victorian reading came to the rescue, and I realized that what I was beholding was none other than the remains of an old custom no longer in use, the echo of an era when the homes of the wealthy had mannequins made to measure for different members of the family, used for tailoring their dresses and trousseaux. Despite Christ’s threatening, grim look, I could not resist the temptation of stretching out my hand and touching the torso with Penélope Aldaya’s name written on it.
At that moment I thought I heard footsteps on the floor above. I imagined that Bea had arrived and was wandering through the old mansion, looking for me. Relieved, I left the chapel and made my way back to the staircase. I was about to go up when I noticed that at the other end of the corridor there was a boiler and a central heating system that seemed to be in good order. It seemed incongruent with the rest of the cellar. I remembered Bea’s mentioning that the estate agency, which for years had tried to sell the Aldaya mansion, had carried out some renovation work, hoping to attract potential buyers. I went up to examine the contraption more closely and saw that it consisted of a radiator system fed by a small boiler. At my feet I found a few pails full of charcoal, bits of plywood, and a few tins that I presumed must contain kerosene. I opened the boiler latch and had a look inside. Everything seemed to be in order. The idea of being able to get that old machine to work after so many years struck me as a bit far-fetched, but that didn’t stop me filling the boiler with bits of charcoal and wood and spraying them with a good shower of kerosene. While I was doing this, I thought I heard the creaking of old wood, and for a moment I turned my head to look behind me. Suddenly I had a vision of bloodstained thorns being pulled out of the wood, and as I faced the darkness, I was afraid o
f seeing the figure of Christ emerge only a few steps away, coming toward me with a wolfish smile.
When I put the candle to it, the boiler lit up with a sudden blaze that provoked a metallic roar. I closed the latch and moved back a few steps, becoming increasingly unsure about the soundness of my plan. The boiler appeared to be drawing with some difficulty, so I decided to return to the ground floor and check whether my efforts were yielding any practical results. I went up the stairs and returned to the large room, hoping to find Bea there, but there was no trace of her. I calculated that an hour must have passed since my arrival, and my fear that the object of my desires might never turn up grew more acute. To kill that anxiety, I decided to continue with my plumbing and set off in search of radiators that might confirm whether the resurrection of the boiler had been a success. All the ones I found proved resistant to my hopes; they were icy cold. But then, in a small room of no more than four or five square yards, a bathroom that I supposed must be situated immediately above the boiler, I could feel a little warmth. I knelt down and realized joyfully that the floor tiles were lukewarm. That is how Bea found me, crouching on the floor, feeling the tiles of the bathroom like an idiot, with an asinine smile plastered on my face.
WHEN I LOOK BACK AND TRY TO RECONSTRUCT THE EVENTS OF THAT night in the Aldaya mansion, the only excuse that occurs to me that might justify my behavior is to allege that when you’re eighteen, in the absence of subtlety and greater experience, an old bathroom can seem like paradise. It only took me a couple of minutes to persuade Bea that we should take the blankets from the sitting room and lock ourselves in that minute bathroom, with only two candles and some bathroom fittings that looked like museum pieces. My main argument—climatological—soon convinced Bea, the warmth that emanated from those floor tiles making her put aside her initial fear that my crazy invention might burn the house down. Later, in the reddish half-light of the candles, as I undressed her with trembling fingers, she smiled, her eyes searching mine and proving that then and forever afterward anything that might occur to me had already occurred to her.
I remember her sitting with her back against the closed door of that room, her arms hanging down beside her, the palms of her hands opened toward me. I remember how she held her face up, defiant, while I stroked her throat with the tips of my fingers. I remember how she took my hands and placed them on her breasts, and how her eyes and lips quivered when, enraptured, I took her nipples between my fingers and squeezed them, how she slid down to the floor while I searched out her belly with my lips and her white thighs received me.
“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.”
