‘Seeing such dazzling salesmanship on display I’ll leave the floor to the master and retire to the back room to sort out the collection the widow left with us the other day.’
I took the opportunity to follow Fermín and draw the curtain behind us. Fermín looked at me, slightly alarmed, but I gave him a friendly smile.
‘I’ll help you if you like.’
‘As you wish, Daniel.’
For a few minutes we began to unpack the boxes of books and classify them in piles by genre, condition and size. Fermín didn’t open his lips and avoided my eyes.
‘Fermín …’
‘I’ve already told you not to worry about that business of the letter. Your wife is not a trollop, and if she ever wants to dump you – and pray heaven that will never happen – she’ll tell you face to face without the need for soap-opera shenanigans.’
‘Got the message, Fermín. But that’s not it.’
Fermín looked up, distressed, knowing what was coming.
‘I’ve been thinking that today, after we close, we could go out, grab a bite and have some man-talk, you know, just you and me,’ I began. ‘To talk about our stuff. About yesterday’s visitor. And about whatever it is that’s worrying you, which I have an inkling might be connected.’
Fermín left the book he was cleaning on the table. He gazed at me in dismay and sighed.
‘I’m in a real mess, Daniel,’ he mumbled at last. ‘A mess I don’t know how to get out of.’
I put my hand on his shoulder. Under the overalls all I could feel was skin and bone.
‘Then let me help you. Two heads are always better than one.’
He seemed at a loss.
‘Surely we’ve got out of worse situations, you and I,’ I insisted.
He smiled sadly, not too convinced by my forecast.
‘You’re a good friend, Daniel.’
Not half as good as he deserved, I thought.
12
Back then Fermín still lived in the same old pensión on Calle Joaquín Costa, where I had it on good authority that the rest of the lodgers, in secret collaboration with Rociíto and her sisters-in-arms, were preparing a stag night for him that would go down in history. Fermín was already waiting for me by the front door when I went by to pick him up just after nine.
‘To be honest, I’m not that hungry,’ he announced when he saw me.
‘Pity, because I thought we could go down to Can Lluís,’ I proposed. ‘They’re serving chickpea stew and baby lamb chops tonight …’
‘Well, let’s not make hasty decisions here,’ Fermín reconsidered. ‘A good repast is like a lass in bloom: not to appreciate it is the business of fools.’
With that pearl from the eminent Don Fermín Romero de Torres’s stockpile of aphorisms, we ambled down towards what was one of my friend’s favourite restaurants in the whole of Barcelona and much of the known world. Can Lluís was located at 49 Calle de la Cera, on the threshold of the Raval quarter. Behind its modest appearance Can Lluís conveyed an intimate atmosphere steeped in the mysteries of old Barcelona, offering exquisite food and impeccable service at prices that even Fermín, or I, could afford. On weekdays, it attracted a bohemian community, in which people from the theatre, literary types and other creatures high and low rubbed shoulders and toasted each other.
When we walked in we spied one of the bookshop’s regular customers, Professor Alburquerque, a fine reviewer and local savant who taught at the arts faculty and made Can Lluís his second home. He was enjoying dinner at the bar and leafing through a newspaper.
‘Long time no see, Professor,’ I said as I walked past him. ‘You must pay us a visit some time and replenish your stock. A man can’t live on obituaries from La Vanguardia.’
‘I wish I could. It’s those damned dissertations. Having to read the inane babble written by the spoiled rich kids who come through university these days is beginning to give me bouts of dyslexia.’
At that point, one of the waiters served him his pudding, a plump crème caramel wobbling under a surge of burned sugar tears and smelling of the finest vanilla.
‘Your lordship will get over it after a couple of spoonfuls of this marvel,’ said Fermín. ‘Goodness me: it jiggles just like the formidable bust of Doña Margarita Xirgu.’