I watched her take the book out. She held it with both hands, looking at the cover, then turning it over to examine the back. I could hardly breathe and wanted to go up to her and say something, but couldn’t. I stood there, only a few metres away from my mother, spying on her without her being aware of my presence, until she set off again, clutching the book, walking towards Colón. As she passed the Palace of La Virreina she went over to a waste bin and threw the book inside. I watched as she headed down the Ramblas until she was lost among the crowd, as if she had never been there at all.

19

Sempere was alone in the bookshop, gluing down the spine of a copy of Fortunata and Jacinta that was coming apart. When he looked up, he saw me on the other side of the door. In just a few seconds he realised the state I was in and signalled to me to come in. As soon as I was inside, he offered me a chair.

‘You don’t look well, Martín. You should go and see a doctor. If you’re scared I’ll come with you. Physicians make my flesh crawl too, with their white gowns and those sharp things in their hands, but sometimes you’ve got to go through with it.’

‘It’s just a headache, Señor Sempere. It’s already getting better.’

Sempere poured me a glass of Vichy water.

‘Here. This cures everything, except for stupidity, which is an epidemic on the rise.’

I smiled weakly at Sempere’s joke, then drank down the water and sighed. I felt a wave of nausea and an intense pressure throbbed behind my left eye. For a moment I thought I was going to collapse and I closed my eyes. I took a deep breath, praying I wouldn’t drop dead right there. Destiny couldn’t have such a perverse sense of humour as to guide me to Sempere’s bookshop so I that could present him with a corpse, after all he’d done for me. I felt a hand holding my head gently. Sempere. I opened my eyes and saw the bookseller and his son, who had just stepped in, watching me as if they were at a wake.

‘Shall I call the doctor?’ Sempere’s son asked.

‘I’m better, thanks. Much better.’

‘Your way of getting better makes one’s hair stand on end. You look grey.’

‘A bit more water?’

Sempere’s son rushed to fill me another glass.

‘Forgive the performance,’ I said. ‘I can assure you I hadn’t rehearsed it.’

‘Don’t talk nonsense!’

‘It might do you good to eat something sweet. Maybe it was a drop in your sugar levels…’ the boy suggested.

‘Run over to the baker’s on the corner and get him something,’ the bookseller agreed.

When we were left alone, Sempere fixed his eyes on mine.

‘I promise I’ll go to the doctor,’ I said.

A few minutes later the bookseller’s son returned with a paper bag full of the most select assortment of buns in the area. He handed it to me and I chose a brioche which, any other time, would have seemed to me as tempting as a chorus girl’s backside.

‘Bite,’ Sempere ordered.

I ate my brioche obediently, and slowly I began to feel better.

‘He seems to be reviving,’ Sempere’s son observed.

‘What the corner-shop buns can’t cure-’

At that moment we heard the doorbell. A customer had come into the bookshop and, at Sempere’s nod, his son left us to serve him. The bookseller stayed by my side, trying to feel my pulse by pressing on my wrist with his index finger.

‘Señor Sempere, do you remember, many years ago, when you said that if one day I needed to save a book, really save it, I should come to see you?’

Sempere glanced at the rejected book I had rescued from the bin, which I was still holding in my hands.

‘Give me five minutes.’

It was beginning to get dark when we walked down the Ramblas among a crowd who had come out for a stroll on a hot, humid afternoon. There was only the hint of a breeze; balcony doors and windows were wide open, with people leaning out of them, watching the human parade under an amber-coloured sky. Sempere walked quickly and didn’t slow down until we sighted an arcade of shadows at the entrance to Calle Arco del Teatro.

Before crossing over he looked at me solemnly and said: ‘Martín, you mustn’t tell anyone what you’re about to see. Not even Vidal. No one.’

I nodded, intrigued by the bookseller’s air of seriousness and secrecy. I followed him through the narrow street, barely a gap between bleak and dilapidated buildings that seemed to bend over like willows of stone, attempting to close the narrow strip of sky between the rooftops. Soon we reached a large wooden door that looked as if it might be guarding the entrance to an old basilica that had spent a century at the bottom of a lake. Sempere went up the steps to the door and took hold of the brass knocker shaped like a smiling demon’s face. He knocked three times then came down the steps again to wait by my side.

‘You can’t tell anyone what you’re about to see… no one. Not even Vidal. No one.’

Sempere nodded severely. We waited for about two minutes until we heard what sounded like a hundred bolts being unlocked simultaneously. With a deep groan, the large door opened halfway and a middle-aged man with thick grey hair, a face like a vulture and penetrating eyes stuck his head round it.

‘We were doing just fine and now here’s Sempere!’ he snapped. ‘What are you bringing me today? Another aficionado who hasn’t got himself a girlfriend because he’d rather live with his mother?’

Sempere paid no attention to this sarcastic greeting.

‘Martín, this is Isaac Monfort, the keeper of this place. His friendliness has no equal. Do everything he says. Isaac, this is David Martín, a good friend, a writer and a trustworthy person.’

The man called Isaac looked me up and down without much enthusiasm and then exchanged a glance with Sempere.

‘A writer is never trustworthy. Let’s see, has Sempere explained the rules to you?’

‘Only that I can never tell anyone what I will see here.’

‘That is the first and most important rule. If you don’t keep it, I personally will wring your neck. Do you get the idea?’

‘One hundred per cent.’

‘Come on, then,’ said Isaac, motioning me to come in.

‘I’ll say goodbye now, Martín. You’ll find a safe place here.’

I realised that Sempere was referring to the book, not to me. He hugged me and then disappeared into the night. I stepped inside and Isaac pulled a lever on the back of the door. A thousand mechanisms, knotted together in a web of rails and pulleys, sealed it up. Isaac took a lamp from the floor and raised it to my face.

‘You don’t look well,’ he pronounced.

‘Indigestion,’ I replied.

‘From what?’

‘Reality.’

‘Join the queue.’

We walked down a long corridor, and on either side, through the shadows, I thought I could make out frescoes and marble staircases. We advanced further into the palatial building and shortly there appeared, in front of us, what looked like the entrance to a large hall.

‘What have you got there?’ Isaac asked.

‘The Steps of Heaven. A novel.’

‘What a tacky title. Don’t tell me you’re the author.’

‘Who, me?’

Isaac sighed, shaking his head and mumbling to himself.

‘And what else have you written?’

‘City of the Damned, volumes one to twenty-seven, among other things.’

Isaac turned round and smiled with satisfaction.

‘Ignatius B. Samson?’

‘May he rest in peace, and at your service.’

At that point, the mysterious keeper stopped and left the lamp resting on what looked like a balustrade rising in front of a large vault. I looked up and was spellbound. There before me stood a colossal labyrinth of bridges, passages and shelves full of hundreds of thousands of books, forming a gigantic library of seemingly impossible perspectives. Tunnels zigzagged through the immense structure, which seemed to rise in a spiral towards a large glass dome, curtains of light and darkness filtering through it. Here and there I could see isolated figures walking along footbridges, up stairs, or carefully examining the contents of the passageways of that cathedral of books and words. I couldn’t believe my eyes and I looked at Isaac Monfort in astonishment. He was smiling like an old fox enjoying his favourite game.