“True to character. Fermín, I’m going to ask you to look after the shop today; I’m going around to Don Federico’s for a while. Later I’ve arranged to meet Barceló. And Daniel has things to do.”
I raised my eyes just in time to catch Fermín and my father exchanging meaningful looks.
“What a couple of matchmakers,” I said. They were still laughing at me when I walked out through the door.
A COLD, SLASHING BREEZE SWEPT THE STREETS, SCATTERING STRIPS OF mist in its path. The steely sun snatched copper reflections from the roofs and belfries of the Gothic quarter. There were still some hours to go until my appointment with Bea in the university cloister, so I decided to try my luck and call on Nuria Monfort, hoping she was still living at the address provided by her father some time ago.
Plaza de San Felipe Neri is like a small air shaft in the maze of streets that crisscross the Gothic quarter, hidden behind the old Roman walls. The holes left by machine-gun fire during the war pockmark the church walls. That morning a group of children played soldiers, oblivious to the memory of the stones. A young woman, her hair streaked with silver, watched them from the bench where she sat with an open book on her lap and an absent smile. The address showed that Nuria Monfort lived in a building by the entrance to the square. The year of its construction was still visible on the blackened stone arch that crowned the front door: 1801. Once I was in the hallway, there was just enough light to make out the shadowy chamber from which a staircase twisted upward in an erratic spiral. I inspected the beehive of brass letterboxes. The names of the tenants appeared on pieces of yellowed cardboard inserted in slots, as was common in those days.
Miquel Moliner /Nuria Monfort
3–2
I went up slowly, almost fearing that the building would collapse if I were to tread firmly on those tiny dollhouse steps. There were two doors on every landing, with no number or sign. When I reached the third floor, I chose one at random and rapped on it with my knuckles. The staircase smelled of damp, of old stone, and of clay. I rapped a few times but got no answer. I decided to try my luck with the other door. I knocked with my fist three times. Inside the apartment I could hear a radio blaring the pious daily broadcast ofMoments for Reflection with Father Martín Calzado.
The door was opened by a woman in a padded turquoise-blue checked dressing gown, slippers
, and a helmet of curlers. In that dim light, she looked like a deep-sea diver. Behind her the velvety voice of Father Martín Calzado was devoting some words to the sponsors of the program, a brand of beauty products called Aurorín, much favored by pilgrims to the sanctuary of Lourdes and with miraculous properties when it came to pustules and warts.
“Good afternoon. I’m looking for Señora Monfort.”
“Nurieta? You’ve got the wrong door, young man. It’s the one opposite.”
“I’m so sorry. It’s just that I knocked and there was no answer.”
“You’re not a debt collector, are you?” asked the neighbor suddenly, suspicious from experience.
“No. Señora Monfort’s father sent me.”
“Ah, all right. Nurieta must be down below, reading. Didn’t you see her when you came up?”
When I got to the bottom of the stairs, I saw that the woman with the silvery hair and the book in her hands was still fixed on her bench in the square. I observed her carefully. Nuria Monfort was a beautiful woman, with the sort of features that graced fashion magazines or studio portraits, but a woman whose youth seemed to be ebbing away through her eyes. There was something of her father in her slightness of build. I imagined she must be in her early forties, judging from the gray hair and the lines that aged her face. In a low light, she would have seemed ten years younger.
“Señora Monfort?”
She looked at me as though waking up from a trance, without seeing me.
“My name is Daniel. Your father gave me your address some time ago. He said you might be able to talk to me about Julián Carax.”
When she heard those words, her dreamy look left her. I had a feeling that mentioning her father had not been a good idea.
“What is it you want?” she asked suspiciously.
I felt that if I didn’t gain her trust at that very moment, I would have blown my one chance. The only card I could play was to tell the truth.
“Please let me explain. About eight years ago, almost by chance, I found a novel by Julián Carax in the Cemetery of Forgotten Books. You had hidden it there to save it from being destroyed by a man who calls himself Laín Coubert,” I said.
She stared at me, without moving, as if she were afraid that the world around her was going to fall apart.
“I’ll only take a few minutes of your time,” I added. “I promise.”
She nodded, with a look of resignation. “How’s my father?” she asked, avoiding my eyes.
“He’s well. He’s aged a little. And he misses you a lot.”
Nuria Monfort let out a sigh I couldn’t decipher. “You’d better come up to the apartment. I don’t want to talk about this on the street.”
·20·