I shook my head, trembling.
“Where is that fucking book?”
I shook my head once more. In the half-light I hardly saw the blow coming. My sight blurred and I felt myself falling out of bed, blood in my mouth and a sharp pain like white fire burning behind my lips. When I tilted my head I saw what I imagined to be pieces of a couple of broken teeth on the floor. My father’s hand grabbed me by the neck and lifted me up.
“Where is it?”
“Please, Father …”
He threw me face-first against the wall with all his might and the bang on my head made me lose my balance and crash down like a bag of bones. I crawled into a corner and stayed there, curled up in a ball, watching as my father opened my wardrobe, pulled out the few clothes I possessed and hurled them on the floor. He looked in drawers and trunks without finding the book until, exhausted, he came back for me. I closed my eyes and pressed myself up agai
nst the wall, waiting for another blow that never came. I opened my eyes again and saw my father sitting on the bed, crying with shame and hardly able to breathe. When he saw me looking at him, he rushed off down the stairs. His footsteps echoed as he walked off into the silence of dawn, and only when I was sure he was a good distance away did I drag myself as far as the bed and pull my book out of its hiding place under the mattress. I got dressed and went out, clutching the book under my arm.
A sheet of sea mist was descending over Calle Santa Ana as I reached the door of the bookshop. The bookseller and his son lived on the first floor of the building. I knew that six o’clock in the morning was not a good time to call on anyone, but my only thought at that moment was to save the book, for I was sure that if my father found it when he returned home he would destroy it with all the anger that boiled inside him. I rang the bell and waited. I had to ring two or three times before I heard the balcony door open and saw old Sempere, in his dressing gown and slippers, looking at me in astonishment. Half a minute later he came down to open the front door, and when he saw my face all trace of anger disappeared. He knelt in front of me and held me by my arms.
“God Almighty! Are you all right? Who did this to you?”
“Nobody. I fell.”
I held out the book.
“I came to return it, because I don’t want anything to happen to it …”
Sempere looked at me but didn’t say a word—he simply took me in his arms and carried me up to the apartment. His son, a twelve-year-old boy who was so shy I didn’t remember ever having heard his voice, had woken at the sound of his father going out and was waiting on the landing. When he saw the blood on my face he looked at his father with fear in his eyes.
“Call Dr. Campos.”
The boy nodded and ran to the telephone. I heard him speak, realizing that he was not dumb after all. Between the two of them they settled me into an armchair in the dining room and cleaned the blood off my wounds while we waited for the doctor to arrive.
“Aren’t you going to tell me who did this to you?”
I didn’t utter a sound. Sempere didn’t know where I lived, and I was not going to give him any ideas.
“Was it your father?”
I looked away.
“No. I fell.”
Dr. Campos, who lived four or five doors away, arrived five minutes later. He examined me from head to toe, feeling my bruises and dressing my cuts as delicately as possible. You could see his eyes burning with indignation, but he made no comment.
“There’s nothing broken, but the bruises will last awhile and they’ll hurt for a few days. Those two teeth will have to come out. They’re no good anymore and there’s a risk of infection.”
When the doctor had left, Sempere made me a cup of hot cocoa and smiled as he watched me drink it.
“All this just to save Great Expectations, eh?”
I shrugged. Father and son looked at each other with conspiratorial smiles.
“Next time you want to save a book, save it properly. Don’t risk your life. Just let me know and I’ll take you to a secret place where books never die and nobody can destroy them.”
I looked at both of them, intrigued.
“What place is that?”
Sempere gave me a wink and smiled at me in that mysterious manner that seemed to be borrowed from an Alexandre Dumas romance and that people said was a family trait.
“Everything in due course, my friend. Everything in due course.”