“Relax, Doña Aurora, they only attack when they’re hungry.”
We ventured in a few steps till we reached the end of the corridor, where a dining room opened onto the balcony. Just visible was a shabby table covered with a tattered tablecloth that looked more like a shroud. Four chairs held a wake, together with a couple of grimy glass cabinets that guarded the tableware: an assortment of glasses and a tea set. In a corner stood the old upright piano that had belonged to Carax’s mother. The keys were dark with dirt, and the joins could hardly be seen under the film of dust. An armchair with a long, threadbare cover was slowly disintegrating next to the balcony. Beside it was a coffee table on which rested a pair of reading glasses and a Bible bound in pale leather and edged with gold, of the sort that used to be given as presents for a child’s first communion. It still had its bookmark, a piece of scarlet string.
“Look, that chair is where the old man was found dead. The doctor said he’d been there for two days. How sad to go like that, like a dog, all alone. Not that he didn’t have it coming, but even so…”
I went up to the chair where Mr. Fortuny had died. Next to the Bible was a small box containing black-and-white photographs, old studio portraits. I knelt down to examine them, almost afraid to touch them. I felt I was profaning the memories of a poor old man, but my curiosity got the better of me. The first print showed a young couple with a boy who could not have been more than four years old. I recognized him by his eyes.
“Look, there they are. Mr. Fortuny as a young man, and her…”
“Didn’t Julián have any brothers or sisters?”
The caretaker shrugged her shoulders and let out a sigh. “I heard rumors that she miscarried once because of the beatings her husband gave her, but I don’t know. People love to gossip, don’t they? But not me. All I know is that once Julián told the kids in the building that he had a sister only he could see. He said she came out of mirrors as if she were made of thin air and that she lived with Satan himself in a palace at the bottom of a lake. My Isabelita had nightmares for a whole month. That child could be really morbid at times.”
I glanced at the kitchen. There was a broken pane in a small window overlooking an inner courtyard, and you could hear the nervous and hostile flapping of the pigeons’ wings on the other side.
“Do all the apartments have the same layout?” I asked.
“The ones that look onto the street do. But this one is an attic, so it’s a bit different. There’s the kitchen and a laundry room that overlooks the inside yard. Down this corridor there are three bedrooms, and a bathroom at the end. Properly decorated, they can look very nice, believe me. This one is similar to my Isabelita’s apartment—but of course right now it looks like a tomb.”
“Do you know which Julián’s room was?”
“The first door is the master bedroom. The seco
nd is a smaller room. It was probably that one, I’d say.”
I went down the corridor. The paint on the walls was falling off in shreds. At the end of the passage, the bathroom door was ajar. A face seemed to stare at me from the mirror. It could have been mine, or perhaps the face of the sister who lived there. As I got closer, it withdrew into darkness. I tried to open the second door.
“It’s locked,” I said.
The caretaker looked at me in astonishment. “These doors don’t have locks,” she said.
“This one does.”
“Then the old man must have had it put in, because all the other apartments…”
I looked down and noticed that the footprints in the dust led up to the locked door. “Someone’s been in this room,” I said. “Recently.”
“Don’t scare me,” said the caretaker.
I went up to the other door. It didn’t have a lock. It opened with a rusty groan when I touched it. In the middle stood an old four-poster bed, unmade. The sheets had turned yellowish, like winding sheets, and a crucifix presided over the bed. The room also contained a chest of drawers with a small mirror on it, a basin, a pitcher, and a chair. A wardrobe, its door ajar, stood against the wall. I went around the bed to a bedside table with a glass top, under which lay photographs of ancestors, funeral cards, and lottery tickets. On the table were a carved wooden music box and a pocketwatch, frozen forever at twenty past five. I tried to wind up the music box, but the melody got stuck after six notes. When I opened the drawer of the bedside table, I found an empty spectacle case, a nail clipper, a hip flask, and a medal of the Virgin of Lourdes. Nothing else.
“There must be a key to that room somewhere,” I said.
“The administrator must have it. Look, I think it’s best we leave.”
Suddenly I looked down at the music box. I lifted the cover and there, blocking the mechanism, I found a gold key. I took it out, and the music box resumed its tinkling. I recognized a tune by Ravel.
“This must be the key.” I smiled at the caretaker.
“Listen, if the room was locked, there must be a reason. Even if it’s just out of respect for the memory of—”
“If you’d rather, you can wait for me down in your apartment, Doña Aurora.”
“You’re a devil. Go on. Open up if you must.”
·16·
A BREATH OF COLD AIR WHISTLED THROUGH THE HOLE IN THE lock, licking at my fingers while I inserted the key. The lock that Mr. Fortuny had fitted in the door of his son’s unoccupied room was three times the size of the one on the front door. Doña Aurora looked at me apprehensively, as if we were about to open a Pandora’s box.