‘Don’t rush me; this is precision work. One has to act strategically. ’
‘So what is your plan?’
‘For a start we’re off to have our breakfast.’
‘You only got here half an hour ago!’
‘Señor Martín, we’re not going to get anywhere with that attitude.’
The ordeal of building work and botched jobs went on a week longer than expected, but even with the presence of Otilio and his squadron of geniuses making holes where they shouldn’t and enjoying two-and-a-half-hour breakfasts, the thrill of being able to live in that old rambling house, which I had dreamed about for so long, would have kept me going for years with candles and oil lamps if need be. I was lucky in that the Ribera quarter was a spiritual home for all kinds of craftsmen: just a stone’s throw from my new home I found someone who could put in new locks that didn’t look as if they’d been stolen from La Bastille, as well as twentieth-century wall lights and taps. The idea of having a telephone line installed did not appeal to me and, judging by what I’d heard on Vidal’s wireless, these ‘new mass communication media’, as the press called them, were not aimed at people such as myself. I decided that my existence would be one of books and silence. All I took from the pensión was a change of clothes and the case containing my father’s gun, his only memento. I distributed the remainder of my clothes and personal belongings among the pensión residents. Had I also been able to leave behind my memories, even my skin, I would have done so.
The same day as the first instalment of City of the Damned was published, I spent my first official and electrified night in the tower house. The novel was an imaginary intrigue I had woven round the story of the fire in El Ensueño in 1903, about a ghostly creature who had bewitched the streets of the Raval quarter ever since. Before the ink had dried on that first edition I had already started work on the second novel of the series. By my reckoning, based on thirty uninterrupted days’ work a month, Ignatius B. Samson had to produce an average of 6.66 pages a day to comply with the terms of the agreement, which was crazy but had the advantage of not giving me much time to think about it.
I hardly noticed that, as the days went by, I was beginning to consume more coffee and cigarettes than oxygen. As I gradually poisoned my brain, I had the feeling that it was turning into a steam engine that never cooled down. But Ignatius B. Samson was young and resilient. He worked all night and collapsed from exhaustion at dawn, possessed by strange dreams in which the letters on the page trapped in the typewriter would come unstuck and, like spiders made of ink, would crawl up his hands and face, working their way through his skin and nesting in his veins until his heart was covered in black and his pupils were clouded in pools of darkness. I would barely leave the old rambling house for weeks on end, and would forget what day of the week it was, or what month of the year. I paid no attention to the recurring headaches that would sometimes plague me, arriving all of a sudden as if a metal awl were boring a hole through my skull, burning my eyes with a flash of white light. I had grown accustomed to living with a constant ringing in my ears that only the murmur of wind or rain could mask. Sometimes, when a cold sweat covered my face and I felt my hands shaking on the Underwood keyboard, I told myself that the following day I would go to the doctor. But on that day there was always another scene, and another story to tell.
To celebrate the first year of Ignatius B. Samson’s life, I decided to take the day off and reacquaint myself with the sun, the breeze and the streets of a city I had stopped walking through and now only imagined. I shaved, tidied myself up and donned the best and most presentable of my suits. I left the windows open in the study and in the gallery to air the house and let the thick fog that had become its scent be scattered to the four winds. When I went out into the street, I found a large envelope at the bottom of the letter box. Inside was a sheet of parchment, sealed with the angel motif and written on in that exquisite writing. It said:
Dear David,
I wanted to be the first to congratulate you on this new stage of your career. I have thoroughly enjoyed reading the first instalments of City of the Damned. I hope you will like this small gift.
I would like to reiterate my admiration for you, and my hope that one day our paths may cross. Trusting that this will come about, please accept the most affectionate greetings from your friend and reader,
Andreas Corelli
The gift was the same copy of Great Expectations that Señor Sempere had given me when I was a child, the same copy I had returned to him before my father could find it and the same copy that, years later, when I had wanted to recover it at any price, had disappeared only hours before in the hands of a stranger. I stared at the bundle of paper which to me, in a not so distant past, had seemed to contain all the magic and light of the world. The cover still bore my bloodstained fingerprints.
‘Thank you,’ I whispered.
9
Señor Sempere put on his reading spectacles to examine the book closely. He placed it on a cloth he had spread out on his desk in the back room and pulled down the reading lamp so that its beam focused on the volume. His examination lasted a few minutes, during which I maintained a reverential silence. I watched him turn over the pages, smell them, stroke the paper and the spine, weigh the book with one hand and then the other, and finally close the cover and examine with a magnifying glass the bloodstained fingerprints left by me twelve or thirteen years earlier.
‘Incredible,’ he mused, removing his spectacles. ‘It’s the same book. How did you say you recovered it?’
‘I really couldn’t tell you, Señor Sempere. Do you know anything about a French publisher called Andreas Corelli?’
‘For a start he sounds more Italian than French, although the name Andreas could be Greek…’
‘The publishing house is in Paris. Éditions de la Lumière.’
Sempere looked doubtful.
‘I’m afraid it doesn’t ring a bell. I’ll ask Barceló. He knows everything; let’s see what he says.’
Gustavo Barceló was one of the senior members of the second-hand booksellers’ guild in Barcelona and his vast expertise was as legendary as his somewhat abrasive and pedantic manner. There was a saying in the trade: when in doubt, ask Barceló. At that very moment Sempere’s son put his head round the door and signalled to his father. Although he was two or three years older than me he was so shy that he could make himself invisible.
‘Father, someone’s come to collect an order that I think you took.’
The bookseller nodded and handed me a thick, worn volume.
‘This is the latest catalogue of European publishers. Why don’t you have a look at it and see if you can find anything while I attend to the customer?’ he suggested.
I was left alone in the back room, searching in vain for Éditions de la Lumière, while Sempere returned to the counter. As I leafed through the volume, I could hear him talking to a female voice that sounded familiar. I heard them mention Pedro Vidal. Intrigued, I put my head round the door to find out more.
Cristina Sagnier, the chauffeur’s daughter and my mentor’s secretary, was going through a pile of books which Sempere was noting down in his ledger. When she saw me she smiled politely, but I was sure she did not recognise me. Sempere looked up and when he noticed the silly expression on my face he took a quick X-ray of the situation.
‘You do know each other, don’t you?’ he said.