The death of his father, which occurred when young Derek was just eighteen, meant that he could take personal charge of the business, and the death of his mother, a few months later, served as a good excuse to sell the establishment, move to London and pay for his own higher education. Once he had gained his degree, with the deceptive brilliance of the diligent student, he worked as a teacher in state schools for a few years — without, in that brief interval, being assailed by any vocational doubts — until, in 1969, thanks to a superficial and entirely self-interested friendship with one of the teachers at the Polytechnic, he was appointed to the very post he had now rejected in favour of a brief stay abroad — a period which he sensed would somehow be a transitional one.
It is well known to all those familiar with the Institute, whether as teachers, students or merely as regular visitors to the library, that its doors close at nine o’clock sharp (half an hour after the last evening classes end). The person charged with closing up is the porter, to give him his conventional title, even though his duties, and this is more or less the norm in all such coeducational establishments, often depart from those implied by his title and more closely resemble those of a librarian or beadle. This man has to keep an eye on the entrances and exits of anyone not employed by the Institute; attend to any orders, errands or demands issued by teachers; clean the blackboards which, for reasons of carelessness or forgetfulness, have been left, at the end of the day, covered in numbers, illustrious names and notable dates; ensure that no one takes a book from the library without its loan having been duly recorded; and, finally — and leaving aside a few lesser tasks — make quite certain that, at five minutes to nine, the building is empty and, if it is, lock the doors until the following morning. Fabián Jaunedes, the man occupying the busy post of porter when young Derek Lilburn arrived in Madrid, had, for twenty-four years, been carrying out his duties with the perfection of one who has virtually created his own job. And so when, in early March, with some haste and urgency, he was admitted to the hospital for a cataract operation and thus forced to abandon his duties for at least as long as it would take him to recuperate (a recuperation that would necessarily be incomplete or partial and which would, at any rate, take far longer than those running the organisation might desire), the internal life of the Institute suffered far worse disruption than one would have thought. The director and Mr Bayo immediately rejected the idea of taking on a replacement, for, on the one hand, they thought that, at such short notice, it would be hard to find someone with good enough references who would be prepared to commit himself for what little remained of the term, only perhaps to find himself replaced (they doubted the old porter would make such a speedy recovery, but it seemed to them that filling the vacant position for more than five months was tantamount to getting rid of Fabián for good, which would be a gross act of disloyalty to someone who had himself been so loyal and given such good service for so many years). On the other hand, they soon revealed that ability or obscure need to turn a minor sacrifice or compromise into something truly epic — an ability or need so prevalent among the unimaginative and among people of a certain age — when they decided that, in view of this unexpected setback (which they would have described, rather, as an adversity), it would not be unreasonable to call for a minor sacrifice on the part of each and every one of the teachers, who could easily share the absent porter’s various duties and demonstrate en passant their selfless devotion to the Institute. The librarian was left in charge of keeping an eye on any strangers who went in and out of the main door, which she could easily see from her usual position; Miss Ferris was to keep the flyers and announcements on the bulletin boards in the entrance hall up to date, although without allowing too many to accumulate; every few hours, Mr Turol was to inspect the state of the toilets and the boiler; those teachers who finished their classes at half past eight were urged to appoint one of their students to clean the blackboard before leaving; and, lastly, among the members of staff who had not been assigned any specific task, an equitable rota was put in place: someone must remain in the building until nine at night to check that all was in order and to lock the doors. And although this represented a disturbance to Lilburn’s rigid routine, he had no alternative but to miss his appointment with Señora Giménez-Kleins granddaughter one evening a week and to collaborate with his superiors and colleagues in the smooth running of the Institute by staying in the library until the usual time of nine o’clock every Friday from March onwards.
It was on the first Friday when he was called upon to perform this new duty that Mr Bayo revived in his memory — with the same nonchalance that had made an astonished Lilburn wonder if this earnest man with his irreproachable manners was really capable of such an outrageous assertion — that initial warning which, when he’d first arrived, had produced in him a certain feeling of unease.
‘Now tonight,’ Mr Bayo said to him during break-time, ‘as I explained to you once before, don’t worry about the ghost. I believe I mentioned it briefly when you joined us, but I thought I’d better remind you just in case you’d forgotten, since it’s your turn to be on duty and you might be startled by the noises Señor de Santiesteban makes. At a quarter to nine, you’ll hear a door burst open, then seven footsteps in one direction and, after a pause, eight footsteps back. The door that opened will then close, more quietly this time. There’s no need to be frightened or to take any notice of it. This is something that has been happening since who knows when, certainly for as long as the Institute has had its headquarters in this building. It has nothing whatsoever to do with us and, as you can imagine, we’re more than used to it; as, of course, is poor Fabián, who’s usually the only person to hear it. Just one thing, given that you will have the keys over the weekend and will, therefore, be the first to arrive on Monday morning to open up, please don’t forget to remove his letter of resignation from the bulletin board opposite my office. Be sure to do this as soon as you come in. Although everyone knows of Señor de Santiesteban’s existence (we don’t hide it from anyone, I can assure you, and no one is troubled or upset by his presence, which is, besides, most discreet), we do nevertheless try not to let it intrude too much on the lives of the students, who, being children, are more sensitive than we are to such inexplicable events. So please do remember to remove the letter. And, of course, simply throw it in the nearest wastepaper basket. Imagine what it would be like if we kept them! By now we’d have a whole roomful of them. When I think about it, it all seems utterly ridiculous! Night after night, at the same hour, the same identical letter, with not a single word or syllable different. That, you’ll agree, is what you’d call perseverance.’