“Sempere, old man,” proclaimed Barceló when he saw my father come in. “Hail the prodigal son. To what do we owe the honor?”
“You owe the honor to my son, Daniel, Don Gustavo. He’s just made a discovery.”
“Well, then, pray come and sit down with us, for we must celebrate this ephemeral event,” he announced.
“Ephemeral?” I whispered to my father.
“Barceló can express himself only in frilly words,” my father whispered back. “Don’t say anything, or he’ll get carried away.”
The lesser members of the coterie made room for us in their circle, and Barceló, who enjoyed flaunting his generosity in public, insisted on treating us.
“How old is the lad?” inquired Barceló, inspecting me out of the corner of his eye.
“Almost eleven,” I announced.
Barceló flashed a sly smile.
“In other words, ten. Don’t add on any years, you rascal. Life will see to that without your help.”
A few of his chums grumbled in assent. Barceló signaled to a waiter of such remarkable decrepitude that he looked as if he should be declared a national landmark.
“A cognac for my friend Sempere, from the good bottle, and a cinnamon milk shake for the young one—he’s a growing boy. Ah, and bring us some bits of ham, but spare us the delicacies you brought us earlier, eh? If we fancy rubber, we’ll call for Pirelli tires.”
The waiter nodded and left, dragging his feet.
“I hate to bring up the subject,” Barceló said, “but how can there be jobs? In this country nobody ever retires, not even after they’re dead. Just look at El Cid. I tell you, we’re a hopeless case.”
He sucked on his cold pipe, eyes already scanning the book in my hands. Despite his pretentious façade and his verbosity, Barceló could smell good prey the way a wolf scents blood.
“Let me see,” he said, feigning disinterest. “What have we here?”
I glanced at my father. He nodded approvingly. Without further ado, I handed Barceló the book. The bookseller greeted it with expert hands. His pianist’s fingers quickly explored its texture, consistency, and condition. He located the page with the publication and printer’s notices and studied it with Holmesian flair. The rest watched in silence, as if awaiting a miracle, or permission to breathe again.
“Carax. Interesting,” he murmured in an inscrutable tone.
I held out my hand to recover the book. Barceló arched his eyebrows but gave it back with an icy smile.
“Where did you find it, young man?”
“It’s a secret,” I answered, knowing that my father would be smiling to himself. Barceló frowned and looked at my father. “Sempere, my dearest old friend, because it’s you and because of the high esteem I hold you in, and in honor of the long and profound friendship that unites us like brothers, let’s call it at forty duros, end of story.”
“You’ll have to discuss that with my son,” my father pointed out. “The book is his.”
Barceló granted me a wolfish smile. “What do you say, laddie? Forty duros isn’t bad for a first sale…. Sempere, this boy of yours will make a name for himself in the business.”
The choir cheered his remark. Barceló gave me a triumphant look and pulled out his leather wallet. He ceremoniously counted out two hundred pesetas, which in those days was quite a fortune, and handed them to me. But I just shook my head. Barceló scowled.
“Dear boy, greed is most certainly an ugly, not to say mortal, sin. Be sensible. Call me crazy, but I’ll raise that to sixty duros, and you can open a retirement fund. At your age you must start thinking of the future.”
I shook my head again. Barceló shot a poisonous look at my father through his monocle.
“Don’t look at me,” said my father. “I’m only here as an escort.”
Barceló sighed and peered at me closely.
“Let’s see, junior.What is it you want?”
“What I want is to know who Julián Carax is and where I can find other books he’s written.”