‘Ignatius B. Samson, welcome to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books.’

20

I followed the keeper to the foot of the large nave that housed the labyrinth. The floor we were stepping over was sewn with tombstones, their inscriptions, crosses and faces dissolving into the stone. The keeper stopped and lowered the gas lamp so that the light slid over some of the pieces of the macabre puzzle.

‘The remains of an old necropolis,’ he explained. ‘But don’t let that give you any ideas about dropping dead here.’

We continued towards an area just before the central structure that seemed to form a kind of threshold. In the meantime Isaac was rattling off the rules and duties, fixing his gaze on me from time to time, while I tried to soothe him with docile assent.

‘Article one: the first time somebody comes here he has the right to choose a book, whichever one he likes, from all the books there are in this place. Article two: upon adopting a book you undertake to protect it and do all you can to ensure it is never lost. For life. Any questions so far?’

I looked up towards the immensity of the labyrinth.

‘How does one choose a single book among so many?’

Isaac shrugged his shoulders.

‘Some like to believe it’s the book that chooses the person… destiny, in other words. What you see here is the sum of centuries of books that have been lost and forgotten, books condemned to be destroyed and silenced forever, books that preserve the memory and soul of times and marvels that no one remembers any more. None of us, not even the eldest, knows exactly when it was created or by whom. It’s probably as old as the city itself, and has been growing with it, in its shadow. We know the building was erected using the remains of palaces, churches, prisons and hospitals that may once have stood here. The origin of the main structure goes back to the beginning of the eighteenth century and has not stopped evolving since then. Before that, the Cemetery of Forgotten Books was hidden under the tunnels of the medieval town. Some say that, during the time of the Inquisition, people who were learned and had free minds would hide forbidden books in sarcophagi, or bury them in ossuaries all over the city to protect them, trusting that future generations would dig them up. In the middle of the last century a long tunnel was discovered leading from the bowels of the labyrinth to the basement of an old library that nowadays is sealed off, hidden in the ruins of an old synagogue in the Jewish quarter. When the last of the old city walls came down, there was a landslide and the tunnel was flooded with water from an underground stream that for centuries has run beneath what is now the Ramblas. It’s inaccessible at present, but we imagine that for a long time the tunnel was one of the main entrance routes to this place. Most of the structure you can see was developed during the nineteenth century. Only about a hundred people know about it and I hope Sempere hasn’t made a mistake by including you among them…’

I shook my head vigorously, but Isaac was looking at me with scepticism.

‘Article three: you can bury your own book wherever you like.’

‘What if I get lost?’

‘An additional clause, from my own stable: try not to get lost.’

‘Has anyone ever got lost?’

Isaac snorted.

‘When I started here years ago there was a story doing the rounds about Darío Alberti de Cymerman. I don’t suppose Sempere has told you this, of course…’

‘Cymerman? The historian?’

‘No, the seal tamer. How many Darío Alberti de Cymermans do you know? What happened is that in the winter of 1889 Cymerman went into the labyrinth and disappeared inside it for a whole week. He was found in one of the tunnels, half dead with fright. He had walled himself up behind a few rows of holy texts so he couldn’t be seen.’

‘Seen by whom?’

Isaac looked at me for a long while.

‘By the man in black. Are you sure Sempere hasn’t told you anything about this?’

‘I’m sure he hasn’t.’

Isaac lowered his voice, adopting a conspiratorial tone.

‘Over the years, some members have occasionally seen the man in black in the tunnels of the labyrinth. They all describe him differently. Some even swear they have spoken to him. There was a time when it was rumoured that the man in black was the ghost of an accursed author whom one of the members had betrayed after taking one of his books from here and not keeping the promise to protect it. The book was lost forever and the deceased author wanders eternally along the passages, seeking revenge – well, you know, the sort of Henry James effect people like so much.’

‘You’re not saying you believe the rumours.’

‘Of course not. I have another theory. The Cymerman theory.’

‘Which is…? ’

‘That the man in black is the master of this place, the father of all secret and forbidden knowledge, of wisdom and memory, the bringer of light to storytellers and writers since time immemorial… He is our guardian angel, the angel of lies and of the night.’

‘You’re pulling my leg.’

‘Every labyrinth has its Minotaur,’ Isaac suggested. He smiled mysteriously and pointed towards the entrance. ‘It’s all yours.’

I set off along a footbridge then slowly entered a long corridor of books that formed a rising curve. When I reached the end of the curve the tunnel divided into four passages radiating out from a small circle from which a spiral staircase rose, vanishing upwards into the heights. I climbed the steps until I reached a landing that led into three different tunnels. I chose one of them, the one I thought would lead to the heart of the building, and entered. As I walked, I ran my fingers along the spines of hundreds of books. I let myself be imbued with the smell, with the light that filtered through the cracks or from the glass lanterns embedded in the wooden structure, floating among mirrors and shadows. I wandered aimlessly for almost half an hour until I reached a sort of closed chamber with a table and chair. The walls were made of books and seemed quite solid except for a small gap that looked as if someone had removed a book from it. I decided that this would be the new home for The Steps of Heaven. I looked at the cover for the last time and reread the first paragraph, imagining the moment when, many years after I was dead and forgotten, someone, if fortune had it, would go down that same route and reach that room to find an unknown book into which I had poured everything I had. I placed it there, feeling that I was the one being left on the shelf. It was then that I felt the presence behind me, and turned to find the man in black, his eyes fixed steadily on mine.

21

At first I didn’t recognise my own eyes in the mirror, one of the many that formed a chain of muted light along the corridors of the labyrinth. What I saw in the reflection was my face and my skin, but the eyes were those of a stranger. Murky, dark and full of malice. I looked away and felt the nausea returning. I sat on the chair by the table and took a deep breath. I imagined that even Doctor Trías might be amused at the thought that the tenant lodged in my brain – the tumorous growth as he liked to call it – had decided to deal me the final blow in that place, thereby granting me the honour of being the first permanent citizen of the Cemetery of Forgotten Novelists, buried in the company of his last and most ill-fated work, the one that had taken him to the grave. Someone would find me there in ten months, or ten years, or perhaps never. A grand finale worthy of City of the Damned.

I think I was saved by my bitter laughter. It cleared my head and reminded me of where I was and what I’d come to do. I was about to stand up again when I saw it. It was a rough-looking volume, dark, with no visible title on the spine. It lay on top of a pile of four other books at the end of the table. I picked it up. The covers were bound in what looked like leather, some sort of tanned hide, darkened as a result of much handling rather than from dye. The words of the title, which seemed to have been branded onto the cover, were blurred, but on the fourth page the same title could be clearly read: