I arrived home feeling chilled to the bone. As I walked through the front door I noticed the top of an envelope peeping out of the letter box. Parchment and sealing wax. News from the boss. I opened it while I dragged myself up the stairs. His elegant handwriting summoned me to a meeting the following day. When I reached the landing, the door was already ajar and Isabella was waiting for me with a smile.

‘I was in the study and saw you coming,’ she said.

I tried to smile back at her, but can’t have been very convincing. She looked me in the eye and her face took on a worried expression.

‘Are you all right?’

‘It’s nothing. I think I’ve caught a bit of a chill.’

‘I have some broth on the stove. It’ll work wonders. Come in.’

Isabella took my arm and led me to the gallery.

‘I’m not an invalid, Isabella.’

She let go of me and looked down.

‘I’m sorry.’

I didn’t feel like a confrontation with anybody, still less my obstinate assistant, so I allowed her to guide me to one of the gallery armchairs into which I fell like a sack of bones. Isabella sat opposite me and looked at me with alarm.

‘What happened?’

I smiled reassuringly.

‘Nothing. Nothing has happened. Weren’t you going to give me a bowl of soup?’

‘Right away.’

She shot off towards the kitchen and I heard her rushing about. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes until I heard her footsteps approaching.

She handed me a steaming bowl of exaggerated dimensions.

‘It looks like a chamber pot,’ I said.

‘Drink it and don’t be so rude.’

I sniffed at the broth. It smelled good, but I didn’t want to seem too docile.

‘It smells odd,’ I said. ‘What’s in it?’

‘It smells of chicken because it’s made of chicken, salt and a dash of sherry. Drink it.’

I took a sip and gave the bowl back to Isabella. She shook her head.

‘All of it.’

I sighed and took another sip. It was good, whether I wanted to admit it or not.

‘So, how was your day?’ Isabella asked.

‘It had its moments. How did you get on?’

‘You’re looking at the new star shop assistant of Sempere & Sons.’

‘Excellent.’

‘By five o’clock I’d already sold two copies of The Picture of Dorian Gray and a set of the complete works of Kipling to a very distinguished gentleman from Madrid who gave me a tip. Don’t look at me like that; I put the tip in the till.’

‘What about Sempere’s son? What did he say?’

‘He didn’t actually say very much. He was like a stuffed dummy the whole time pretending he wasn’t looking, but he couldn’t take his eyes off me. I can hardly sit down my bum’s so sore from him staring at it every time I went up the ladder to bring down a book. Happy?’

I smiled and nodded.

‘Thanks, Isabella.’

She looked straight into my eyes.

‘Say that again.’

‘Thank you, Isabella. From the bottom of my heart.’

She blushed and looked away. We sat for a while in a placid silence, enjoying that camaraderie which doesn’t even require words. I drank my broth until I could barely swallow another drop, and then showed her the empty bowl. She nodded.

‘You’ve been to see her, haven’t you? That woman, Cristina,’ said Isabella, trying not to meet my eyes.

‘Isabella, the reader of faces…’

‘Tell me the truth.’

‘I only saw her from a distance.’

Isabella looked at me cautiously, as if she were debating whether or not to say something that was stuck in her conscience.

‘Do you love her?’ she finally asked.

For a moment there was silence.

‘I don’t know how to love anybody. You know that. I’m a selfish person and all that. Let’s talk about something else.’

Isabella’s eyes settled on the envelope sticking out of my pocket.

‘News from the boss?’

‘The monthly call. His Excellency Señor Andreas Corelli is pleased to ask me to attend a meeting tomorrow at seven o’clock in the morning by the entrance to the Pueblo Nuevo Cemetery. He couldn’t have chosen a better place.’

‘And you plan to go?’

‘What else can I do?’

‘You could take a train this very evening and disappear forever.’

‘You’re the second person to suggest that to me today. To disappear from here.’

‘There must be a reason.’

‘And who would be your guide through the disasters of literature?’

‘I’d go with you.’

I smiled and took her hand in mine.

‘With you to the ends of the earth and back, Isabella.’

Isabella withdrew her hand suddenly and looked offended.

‘You’re making fun of me.’

‘Isabella, if I ever decide to make fun of you, I’ll shoot myself.’

‘Don’t say that. I don’t like it when you talk like that.’

‘I’m sorry.’

My assistant turned to her desk and sank into a deep silence. I watched her going over her day’s pages, making corrections and crossing out whole paragraphs with the pen set I had given her.

‘I can’t concentrate with you looking at me.’

I stood up and went past her desk.

‘Then I’ll leave you to work, and after dinner you can show me what you’ve written.’

‘It’s not ready. I have to correct it all and rewrite it and-’

‘It’s never ready, Isabella. Get used to it. We’ll read it together after dinner.’

‘Tomorrow.’

I gave in.

‘Tomorrow.’

I walked away, leaving her alone with her words. I was just closing the door when I heard her voice calling me.

‘David?’

I stopped on the other side of the door, but didn’t say anything. ‘It’s not true. It’s not true that you don’t know how to love anyone.’

I took refuge in my bedroom and closed the door. I lay down on the bed, curled up, and closed my eyes.

26

I left the house after dawn. Dark clouds crept over the rooftops, stealing the colour from the streets. As I crossed Ciudadela Park I saw the first drops hitting the trees and exploding on the path like bullets, raising eddies of dust. On the other side of the park a forest of factories and gas towers multiplied towards the horizon, the soot from the chimneys diluted in the black rain that plummeted from the sky like tears of tar. I walked along the uninviting avenue of cypress trees leading to the gates of the cemetery, the same route I had taken so many times with my father. The boss was already there. I saw him from afar, waiting patiently under the rain, at the foot of one of the large stone angels that guarded the main entrance to the graveyard. He was dressed in black and the only thing that set him apart from the hundreds of statues on the other side of the cemetery railings was his eyes. He didn’t move an eyelash until I was a few metres away. Not quite sure what to do, I raised my hand to greet him. It was cold and the wind smelled of lime and sulphur.

‘Visitors naively think that it’s always sunny and hot in this town,’ said the boss. ‘But I say that sooner or later Barcelona’s ancient, murky soul is always reflected in the sky.’

‘You should publish tourist guides instead of religious texts,’ I suggested.

‘It comes to the same thing, more or less. How have these peaceful, calm days been? Have you made progress with the work? Do you have good news for me?’

I opened my jacket and handed him a sheaf of pages. We entered the cemetery in search of a place to shelter from the rain. The boss chose an old mausoleum with a dome held up by marble columns and surrounded by angels with sharp faces and fingers that were too long. We sat on a cold stone bench. The boss gave me one of his canine smiles, his shining pupils contracting to a black point in which I could see the reflection of my own uneasy expression.

‘Relax, Martín. You make too much of the props.’

Calmly, the boss began to read the pages I had brought.

‘I think I’ll go for a walk while you read,’ I said.

Corelli didn’t bother to look up.