I said good-bye to her in a low voice, thanking her for her time and holding out my hand politely. Nuria Monfort ignored my formal gesture. She placed her hands on my arms, leaned forward, and kissed me on the cheek. We gazed at each other, and this time I searched her lips, almost trembling. It seemed to me that they parted a little, and that her fingers were reaching for my face. At the last moment, Nuria Monfort moved away and looked down.
“I think it’s best if you leave, Daniel,” she whispered.
I thought she was about to cry, but before I could say anything, she closed the door. I was left on the landing, feeling her presence on the other side of the door, motionless, asking myself what had happened in there. At the other end of the landing, the neighbor’s peephole was blinking. I waved at her and attacked the stairs. When I reached the street, I could still feel Nuria Monfort’s face, her voice, and her smell, deep in my soul. I carried the trace of her lips, of her breath on my skin through streets full of faceless people escaping from offices and shops. When I turned into Calle Canuda, an icy wind hit me, cutting through the bustle. I welcomed the cold air on my face and walked up toward the university. After crossing the Ramblas, I made my way toward Calle Tallers and disappeared into its narrow canyon of shadows, feeling that I was still trapped in that dark, gloomy dining room where I now imagined Nuria Monfort sitting alone, silently tidying up her pencils, her folders, and her memories, her eyes poisoned with tears.
·21·
DUSK FELL ALMOST SURREPTITIOUSLY, WITH A COLD BREEZE AND a mantle of purple light that slid between the gaps in the streets. I quickened my pace, and twenty minutes later the front of the university emerged like an ocher ship anchored in the night. In his lodge the porter of the Literature Faculty perused the words of the nation’s most influential bylines in the afternoon edition of the sports pages. There seemed to be hardly any students left on the premises. The echo of my footsteps followed me through the corridors and galleries that led to the cloister, where the glow of two yellowish lights barely disturbed the shadows. It suddenly occurred to me that perhaps Bea had tricked me, that she’d arranged to meet me there at that untimely hour to avenge my presumption. The leaves on the orange trees in the cloister shimmered with tears of silver, and the sound of the fountain wove its way through the arches. I looked carefully around the patio, contemplating disappointment or maybe a certain cowardly sense of relief. There she was, sitting on one of the benches, her silhouette outlined against the fountain, her eyes looking up toward the vaults of the cloister. I stopped at the entrance to gaze at her, and for a moment I was reminded of Nuria Monfort daydreaming on her bench in the square. I noticed she didn’t have her folder or her books with her, and I suspected she hadn’t had any classes that afternoon. Perhaps she’d come here just to meet me. I swallowed hard and walked into the cloister. The sound of my footsteps on the paving gave me away and Bea looked up, with a smile of surprise, as if my presence there were just a coincidence.
“I thought you weren’t coming,” said Bea.
“That’s just what I thought,” I replied.
She remained seated, upright, her knees tight together and her hands on her lap. I asked myself how I could feel so detached from her and at the same time see every line on her lips.
“I’ve come because I want to prove to you that you were wrong about what you said the other day, Daniel. I’m going to marry Pablo, and I don’t care what you show me tonight. I’m off to El Ferrol as soon as he’s finished his military service.”
I looked at her as if I’d just missed a train. I realized I’d spent two days walking on air, and now my world seemed to be collapsing.
“And there I was, thinking you’d come because you felt like seeing me.” I managed a weak smile.
I noticed her blushing self-consciously.
“I was only joking,” I lied. “What I was serious about was my promise to show you a face of the city that you don’t yet know. At least that will give you cause to remember me, or Barcelona, wherever you go.”
There was a touch of sadness in Bea’s smile, as she avoided my eyes. “I nearly went into the cinema, you know. So as not to see you today,” she said.
“Why?”
Bea looked at me but said nothing. She shrugged her shoulders and raised her eyes as if she were trying to catch words that were escaping from her.
“Because I was afraid that perhaps you were right,” she said at last.
I sighed. We were shielded by the evening light and that despondent silence that brings strangers together, and I felt daring enough to say anything that came to my head, even though it might be for the last time.
“Do you love him, or don’t you?”
A smile came and went. “It’s none of your business.”
“That’s true,” I said. “It’s only your business.”
She gave me a cold look. “And what does it matter to you?”
“It’s none of your business,” I said.
She didn’t smile. Her lips trembled. “People who know me know I’m very fond of Pablo. My family and—”
“But I’m almost a stranger,” I interrupted. “And I would like to hear it from you.”
“Hear what?”
“That you really love him. That you’re not marrying him to get away from home, to put distance between yourself and Barcelona and your family, to go somewhere where they can’t hurt you. That you’re leaving and not running away.”
Her eyes shone with angry tears. “You have no right to say that to me, Daniel. You don’t know me.”
“Tell me I’m mistaken and I’ll leave. Do you love him?”
We looked at each other for a long while, without saying a word.