I turned into the narrow cobbled lane and walked down to the railings. A thick, unkempt garden had crept towards the other side and the branches of a eucalyptus tree passed through the spearheads like the arms of prisoners pleading through the bars of a cell. I pushed aside the leaves that covered part of the wall and found the letters and numbers carved in the stone.

CASA MARLASCA

1 3

As I followed the railings that ran round the edge of the garden, I tried to catch a glimpse of the interior. Some twenty metres along I discovered a metal door fitted into the stone wall. A large door knocker rested on the iron sheet that was welded together with tears of rust. The door was ajar. I pushed with my shoulder and managed to open it just enough to pass through without tearing my clothes on the sharp bits of stone that jutted out from the wall. The air was infused with the intense stench of wet earth.

A path of marble tiles led through the trees to an open area covered with white stones. On one side stood a garage, its doors open, revealing the remains of what had once been a Mercedes-Benz and now looked like a hearse abandoned to its fate. The house was a three-storey building in the modernist style, with curved lines and a crown of dormer windows coming together in a swirl beneath turrets and arches. Narrow windows, sharp as daggers, opened in its facade, which was peppered with reliefs and gargoyles. The glass panes reflected the silent passing of the clouds. I thought I could see the outline of a face behind one of the first-floor windows.

Without quite knowing why, I raised my arm and smiled faintly. I didn’t want to be taken for a thief. The figure remained there watching me, as still as a spider. I looked down for a moment and, when I looked up again, it had disappeared.

‘Good morning!’ I called out.

I waited for a few seconds and when no reply came I proceeded slowly towards the house. An oval-shaped swimming pool flanked the eastern side, beyond which stood a glass conservatory. Frayed deckchairs surrounded the swimming pool. A diving board, overgrown with ivy, was poised over the sheet of murky water. I walked towards the edge and saw that it was littered with dead leaves and algae rippling over the surface. I was looking at my own reflection in the water when I noticed a dark figure hovering behind me.

I spun round and met a pointed, sombre face, examining me nervously.

‘Who are you and what are you doing here?’

‘My name is David Martín and Señor Valera, the lawyer, sent me.’

Alicia Marlasca pressed her lips together.

‘You’re Señora de Marlasca? Doña Alicia?’

‘What’s happened to the one who usually comes?’ she asked.

I realised that Señora Marlasca had taken me for one of the articled clerks from Valera’s office and had assumed I was bringing papers to sign or some message from the lawyers. For a moment I considered adopting that identity, but something in the woman’s face told me that she’d heard enough lies to last her a lifetime.

‘I don’t work for the firm, Señora Marlasca. The reason for my visit is a personal matter. I wonder whether you would have a few minutes to speak about one of the old properties belonging to your deceased husband, Don Diego.’

The widow turned pale and looked away. She was leaning on a stick and I noticed a wheelchair in the doorway of the conservatory: I assumed she spent more time in it than she would care to admit.

‘None of the properties belonging to my husband remain, Señor…’

‘Martín.’

‘The banks kept everything, Señor Martín. Everything except for this house, which, thanks to the advice of Señor Valera’s father, was put in my name. The rest was taken by the scavengers…’

‘I’m referring to the tower house, in Calle Flassaders.’

The widow sighed. I reckoned she was around sixty to sixty-five years old. The echo of what must once have been a dazzling beauty had scarcely faded.

‘Forget that house. It’s cursed.’

‘Unfortunately I can’t. I live there.’

Señora Marlasca frowned.

‘I thought nobody wanted to live there. It stood empty for years.’

‘I’ve been renting it for some time. The reason for my visit is that, while I was doing some renovations, I came across a few personal items which I think belonged to your deceased husband and, I suppose, to you.’

‘There’s nothing of mine in that house. Whatever you’ve found must belong to that woman…’

‘Irene Sabino?’

Alicia Marlasca smiled bitterly.

‘What do you really want to know, Señor Martín? Tell me the truth. You haven’t come all this way to return some old things belonging to my husband.’

We gazed at each other in silence and I knew that I couldn’t and didn’t want to lie to this woman, whatever the cost.

‘I’m trying to find out what happened to your husband, Señora Marlasca.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I think the same thing may be happening to me.’

Casa Marlasca had the feel of an abandoned mausoleum that characterises large houses sustained on absence and neglect. Far from its days of fortune and glory, when an army of servants kept it pristine and full of splendour, the house was now a ruin. Paint was peeling off the walls; the floor tiles were loose; the furniture was rotten and damp; the ceilings sagged and the large carpets were threadbare and discoloured. I helped the widow sit on her wheelchair and, following her instructions, pushed her to a reading room that contained hardly any books or pictures.

‘I had to sell almost everything to survive,’ she explained. ‘If it hadn’t been for Señor Valera, who still sends me a small pension every month on behalf of the firm, I wouldn’t have known what to do.’

‘Do you live here alone?’

The widow nodded.

‘This is my home. The only place where I’ve been happy, even though that was many years ago. I’ve always lived here and I’ll die here. I’m sorry I haven’t offered you anything. It’s been so long since I last had visitors that I’ve forgotten how to treat a guest. Would you like coffee or a tea?’

‘I’m fine, thanks.’

Señora Marlasca smiled and pointed to the armchair in which I was sitting.

‘That was my husband’s favourite. He used to sit by the fire and read until late. I sometimes sat here, next to him, and listened. He liked telling me things, at least he did back then. We were very happy in this house…’

‘What happened?’

The widow stared at the ashes in the hearth.

‘Are you sure you want to hear this story?’

‘Please.’

24

‘To be honest, I’m not quite certain when my husband, Diego, met her. I just remember that one day he began to mention her in passing, and that soon not a day went by without him saying her name: Irene Sabino. He told me he’d been introduced to her by a man called Damián Roures who organised seances somewhere on Calle Elisabets. Diego was an expert on religions and had gone to a number of seances as an observer. In those days Irene Sabino was one of the most popular actresses in the Paralelo. She was beautiful, I will not deny it. Apart from that, I think she was just about able to count up to ten. People said she’d been born in the shacks of Bogatell beach, that her mother had abandoned her in the Somorrostro shanty town and she’d grown up among beggars and fugitives. At fourteen she started to dance in cabarets and nightclubs in the Raval and the Paralelo. Dancing is one way of putting it. I suppose she began to prostitute herself before she learned to read and write, if she ever did learn, that is… For a while she was the main star at La Criolla, or that’s what people said. Then she went on to more upmarket venues. I think it was at the Apolo that she met a man called Juan Corbera, whom everyone called Jaco. Jaco was her manager and probably her lover. It was Jaco who invented the name Irene Sabino and the legend that she was the secret offspring of a famous Parisian cabaret star and a prince of the European nobility. I don’t know what her real name was, or whether she ever had one. Jaco introduced her to the seances, at Roures’s suggestion, I believe, and they shared the benefits of selling her supposed virginity to wealthy, bored men who went along to those shams to kill the monotony. Her speciality was couples, they say.