“And what place is for me?” I asked.
“I’m sorry, Martín. Believe me, I’m very sorry.”
Don Basilio stood up and put a hand affectionately on my shoulder.
“Happy Christmas, Martín.”
…
That same evening I emptied my desk and left for good the place that had been my home, disappearing into the dark, lonely streets of the city. On my way to the pension I stopped by the Set Portes restaurant under the arches of Casa Xifré. I stayed outside watching my colleagues laughing and raising their glasses through the windowpane. I hoped my absence made them happy or at least made them forget that they weren’t happy and never would be.
I spent the rest of that week pacing the streets, taking shelter every day in the Ateneo library and imagining that when I returned to the pension I would discover a note from the newspaper editor asking me to rejoin the team. Hiding in one of the reading rooms, I would pull out the business card I had found in my hand when I woke up in El Ensueño and start to compose a letter to my unknown benefactor, Andreas Corelli, but I always tore it up and tried rewriting it the following day. On the seventh day, tired of feeling sorry for myself, I decided to make the inevitable pilgrimage to my maker’s house.
I took the train to Sarriá in Calle Pelayo—in those days it still operated aboveground—and sat at the front of the carriage to gaze at the city and watch the streets become wider and grander the farther we drew away from the center. I got off at the Sarriá stop and from there took a tram that dropped me by the entrance to the monastery of Pedralbes. It was an unusually hot day for the time of year and I could smell the scent of the pines and broom that peppered the hillside. I set off up Avenida Pearson, which at that time was already being developed. Soon I glimpsed the unmistakable profile of Villa Helius. As I climbed the hill and got nearer, I could see Vidal sitting in the window of his tower in his shirtsleeves, enjoying a cigarette. Music floated on the air and I remembered that Vidal was one of the privileged few who owned a radio receiver. How good life must have looked from up there, and how insignificant I must have seemed.
I waved at him and he returned my greeting. When I reached the villa I met the driver, Manuel, who was on his way to the coach house carrying a handful of rags and a buck
et of steaming hot water.
“Good to see you here, David,” he said. “How’s life? Keeping up the good work?”
“We do our best,” I replied.
“Don’t be modest. Even my daughter reads those adventures you publish in the newspaper.”
I was amazed that the chauffeur’s daughter not only knew of my existence but had even read some of the nonsense I wrote.
“Cristina?”
“I have no other,” replied Don Manuel. “Don Pedro is upstairs in his study, in case you want to go up.”
I nodded gratefully, slipped into the mansion, and went up to the third floor, where the tower rose above the undulating rooftop of polychrome tiles. There I found Vidal installed in his study with its view of the city and the sea in the distance. He turned off the radio, a contraption the size of a small meteorite that he’d bought a few months earlier when the first Radio Barcelona broadcast had been announced from the studios concealed under the dome of Hotel Colón.
“It cost me almost two hundred pesetas, and it broadcasts a load of rubbish.”
We sat facing each other, with all the windows wide open and a breeze that to me, an inhabitant of the dark old town, smelled of a different world. The silence was exquisite, like a miracle. You could hear insects fluttering in the garden and the leaves on the trees rustling in the wind.
“It feels like summer,” I ventured.
“Don’t pretend everything is OK by talking about the weather. I’ve already been told what happened,” Vidal said.
I shrugged my shoulders and glanced over at his writing desk. I was aware that my mentor had spent months, or even years, trying to write what he called a “serious” novel, entirely unlike his crime fiction, so that his name would be inscribed in the more distinguished sections of libraries. I didn’t see many sheets of paper.
“How’s the masterpiece going?”
Vidal threw his cigarette butt out the window and stared into the distance.
“I don’t have anything left to say, David.”
“Nonsense.”
“Everything in life is nonsense. It’s just a question of perspective.”
“You should put that in your book. The Nihilist on the Hill. Bound to be a success.”
“You’re the one who is going to need success. Correct me if I’m wrong, but you’ll soon be short of cash.”
“I could always accept your charity.”