I preferred to go on turning the pages rather than look into her eyes.
“There’s nothing to forgive.”
“Look at me, David.”
I closed the album and did as she asked.
“It’s a lie,” she said. “I did realize. I realized every day, but I thought I had no right.”
“Why?”
“Because our lives don’t belong to us. Not mine, not my father’s, not yours …”
“Everything belongs to Vidal,” I said bitterly.
Slowly, she took my hand and brought it to her lips.
“Not today,” she murmured.
I knew I was going to lose her as soon as the night was over and the pain and loneliness that were gnawing at her went away. I knew she was right, not because what she had said was true but because, deep down, we both believed it and it would always be the same. We hid like two thieves in one of the rooms without daring to light a single candle, without even daring to speak. I undressed her slowly, going over her skin with my lips, conscious that I would never do so again. Cristina gave herself with anger and abandon, and when we were overcome by exhaustion she fell asleep in my arms without feeling the need to say anything. I fought off sleep, enjoying the warmth of her body and thinking that if the following day death should come to take me away, I would go in peace. I caressed Cristina in the dark, listening to the storm outside as it left the city, knowing that I was going to lose her but also knowing that, for a few minutes, we had belonged to each other and to nobody else.
When the first light of dawn touched the windows I opened my eyes and found the bed empty. I went out into the corridor and as far as the gallery. Cristina had left the album and had taken Vidal’s novel. I went through the whole house, which already smelled of her absence, and one by one blew out the candles I had lit the night before.
17
Nine weeks later I was standing in front of 17 Plaza de Cataluña, where the Catalonia bookshop had opened its doors two years earlier. I was staring in amazement at what seemed to be an endless display of copies of a novel called The House of Ashes, by Pedro Vidal. I smiled to myself. My mentor had even used the title I had suggested to him years before, when I had given him the idea for the story. I decided to go in and ask for a copy. I opened it at random and began to reread passages I knew by heart, for I had finished going over them only a couple of months earlier. I didn’t find a single word in the whole book that I hadn’t put there myself, except for the dedication: “For Cristina Sagnier, without whom …”
When I handed the book back to the shop assistant he told me not to think twice about buying it.
“We received it two days ago and I’ve already read it,” he added. “A great novel. Take my advice and buy it now. I know the papers are praising it to the skies and that’s usually a bad sign, but in this case it’s the exception that proves the rule. If you don’t like it, bring it to me and I’ll give you your money back.”
“Thanks,” I replied. Knowing what I knew, his recommendation was flattering. “But I’ve read it too.”
“May I interest you in something else?”
“You don’t have a novel called The Steps of Heaven?”
The bookseller thought for a moment.
“That’s the one by Martín, isn’t it? I heard a rumor he also wrote City—”
I nodded.
“I’ve asked for it, but the publishers haven’t sent me any copies. Let me have a good look.”
I followed him to the counter, where he consulted with one of his colleagues, who shook his head.
“It was meant to arrive yesterday, but the publisher says he has no copies. I’m sorry. If you like, I’ll reserve one for you when we get them.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll come back another day. And thank you very much.”
“I’m sorry, sir. I don’t know what can have happened. As I say, I should have had it …”
I left the bookshop and went to a newspaper stand at the top of the Ramblas, where I bought a copy of every newspaper, from La Vanguardia to The Voice of Industry. I sat down in the Canaletas Café and began delving into their pages. Each paper carried a review of the novel I had written for Vidal, full page, with large headlines and a portrait of Don Pedro looking meditative and mysterious, wearing a new suit and puffing on a pipe with studied disdain. I began to read the headlines and then the first and last paragraphs of the reviews.
The first one I read opened with these words: “The House of Ashes is a mature, rich work of great quality that takes its place among the best examples of contemporary literature.” Another paper informed the reader that “nobody in Spain writes better than Pedro Vidal, our most respected and noteworthy novelist,” and a third asserted that this was a “superlative novel, of masterful craftsmanship and exquisite quality.” A fourth newspaper summed up the great international success of Vidal and his work: “Europe bows to the master” (although the novel had come out in Spain only two days earlier and, were it to be translated, wouldn’t appear in any other country for at least a year). The piece went into a long-winded ramble about the great international acclaim and huge respect that Vidal’s name aroused among “the most famous international experts,” even though, as far as I knew, none of his other books had been translated into any other language, except for a novel whose translation into French he himself had underwritten and that sold only 126 copies. Miracles aside, the consensus of the press was that “a classic has been born” and that the novel marked “the return of one of the grea
ts, the best pen of our times: Vidal, undisputed master.”