We were left in silence. I suppose Bolaiño was waiting for some sort of comment from me; I couldn't say anything, because I was crying.
'Anyway,' said Bolaiño. 'What do you think you'll do now?'
'Fan-fucking-tastic!' shouted Conchi when I told her the news. 'I knew Bolaiño would convince you! When do we leave?'
'We're not both going,' I said, thinking Conchi's presence might make the interview with Miralles easier to get. 'I'm going on my own.'
'Don't be silly! Tomorrow morning we'll get in the car and we'll be in Dijon in a jiffy.'
'I've already made up my mind,' I insisted emphatically, thinking that a trip to Dijon in Conchi's Volkswagen was riskier than Leclerc's column's march from the Maghreb to Chad. 'I'm going by train.'
So on Saturday evening I said goodbye to Conchi at the station ('Give Señor Miralles my regards', she said. 'He's called Miralles, Conchi,' I corrected her. 'Just Miralles'), and boarded a train to Dijon like someone boarding a train to Stockton. It was a sleeper, a night train, and I remember being in the restaurant car, with its springy leather seats and windows licked by the speed of the night, until very late, drinking and smoking and thinking about Miralles; at five in the morning, dishevelled, thirsty and sleepy, I stepped down into Dijon's underground and after walking along the deserted platforms illuminated by globes of weak light, I took a taxi that dropped me off at the Victor Hugo, a little family-run hotel on the rue des Fleurs, not far from the city centre. I went up to my room, took a long drink of water from the tap, had a shower and lay down on the bed. In vain I tried to sleep. I thought about Miralles, whom I'd soon see, and about Sánchez Mazas, whom I'd never see; I thought about their one hypothetical encounter, sixty years earlier, almost a thousand kilometres from there, in the rain one violent morning in the forest; I thought I'd soon know if Miralles were the soldier of Líster's who spared Sánchez Mazas, and also what he'd thought as he looked him in the eye, and why he spared him, and that then perhaps I'd finally understand an essential secret. I thought all this and, while I thought, I started to hear the first sounds of the morning (footsteps in the hallway, the trill of a bird, a car's revving motor) and sense the dawn pushing against the window's shutters.
I got up, opened the window and the shutters: the uncertain light of the morning sun shone on a garden with orange trees and a quiet street lined by houses with sloping tiled roofs; only the birds' chirping broke the village-like silence. I got dressed and had breakfast in the hotel dining room; then, since I thought it was too early to go to the Nimpheas Residential Home, I decided to go for a walk. I'd never been to Dijon before, and not four hours earlier, as the taxi had crossed the streets which were lined with buildings like corpses of prehistoric animals, I had looked sleepily at its stately façades and bright blinking advertisements, and it had struck me as one of those imposing medieval cities that become ghostly at night and only then show their true face, the rotted skeleton of their former might; now, on the other hand, as soon as I got out onto the rue des Fleurs and, turning down rue des Roses and rue Desvoges, arrived at Place D'Arcy which at that hour teemed with cars circling the Arc de Triomphe — it struck me as one of those sad provincial French cities where Simenon's sad husbands commit their sad crimes, a cheerless city with no future, just like Stockton. Although it was cool and the sun barely shone, I sat on the terrace of a bar, in Place Grangier, and had a Coca-Cola. To the right of the terrace, in a cobbled street, a little market was set up on the pavement, beyond which rose Notre Dame church. I paid for my Coke, and wandered through the market stalls looking at this and that, crossed the street and went into the church. At first I thought it was empty, but as I heard my footsteps echoing from the domed Gothic ceiling, I caught sight of a woman who'd just lit a candle at one of the side altars; now she was writing something in a bound notebook that was lying open on a lectern. When I approached the altar she stopped writing and turned to leave; our paths crossed in the middle of the nave, and I saw she was tall, young, pale, distinguished. Arriving at the altar, I couldn't help reading the last sentence written in the notebook: 'Please God, help me and my family in this time of darkness.'
I left the church, stopped a taxi and gave him the address of the Nimpheas Residential Home in Fontaine-Les-Dijon. Twenty minutes later, we stopped on the corner of route des Daix and rue des Combottes, in front of a rectangular building with a pale green façade, which bristled with tiny balconies overlooking a garden with a pond and gravel paths. At the reception desk I asked for Miralles, and a girl with the unmistakable air and attire of a nun looked at me with a touch of curiosity or surprise and asked me if I were a relative. I told her I wasn't.
'A friend, then?'
'More or less,' I said.
'Room twenty-two,' and pointing down a corridor she added: 'but I saw him go that way a little while ago; he's probably in the television room, or in the garden.'
The corridor led into a big living room with enormous windows that opened onto a garden with a fountain and lawn chairs, where several old men were lying in the midday sun, tartan blankets covering their legs. In the living room were two old people — a woman and a man — sitting in imitation leather armchairs and watching TV; neither of them turned when I entered the room. I couldn't help but look at the man: a scar began at his temple, crossed his cheek, his jaw, went down his neck and disappeared under the fleece of his grey flannel shirt. I knew he was Miralles straightaway. Paralyzed, I hastily sought the words with which to approach him; but I didn't find them. As if sleepwalking, with my heart pounding in my throat, I sat down in the armchair next to his; Miralles did not turn, but an imperceptible movement of his shoulders revealed he'd noticed my presence. I decided to wait, I made myself comfortable in the chair, looked at the TV: on the screen the sun shone brilliantly, and a presenter with perfect hair and a hospitable air belied by the condescending rictus on his lips, gave instructions to the contestants.