The sun was rising in a blue sky the colour of good luck, and a clean breeze brought with it the smell of the sea. I was walking briskly as if relieved of a tremendous burden, and I began to think that the city had decided to let me go without any ill feeling. In Paseo del Borne I stopped to buy flowers for Cristina, white roses tied with a red ribbon. I climbed the steps to the apartment, two at a time, with a smile on my lips, bearing the certainty that this would be the first day of a life I thought I had lost forever. I was about to open the door when, as I put the key in the lock, it gave way. It was open.

I stepped into the hall. The house was silent.

‘Cristina?’

I left the flowers on a shelf and put my head round the door of the bedroom. Cristina wasn’t there. I walked up the corridor to the gallery. There was no sign of her. I went to the staircase that led up to the study and called out in a loud voice.

‘Cristina?’

Nothing but an echo. I checked the clock on one of the glass cabinets in the gallery. It was almost nine. I imagined that Cristina must have gone out to get something and, being used to leaving such matters as doors and keys to the servants in Pedralbes, she had left the front door open. While I waited, I decided to lie down on the sofa in the gallery. The sun poured in through the large windows: a clean, bright winter sun that felt like a warm caress. I closed my eyes and tried to think about what I was going to take with me. I’d spent half my life surrounded by all these objects, and now, when it was time to part from them, I felt incapable of making a shortlist of the ones I considered essential. Slowly, without noticing, lying under the warmth of the sun and lulled by tepid hope, I fell asleep.

When I woke up and looked at the clock, it was twelve thirty. There was barely half an hour left before the train was due to leave. I jumped up and ran to the bedroom.

‘Cristina?’

This time I went through the whole house, room by room, until I reached the study. There was nobody, but I thought I could smell something odd. Phosphorus. The light from the windows trapped a faint web of blue filaments of smoke suspended in the air. I found a couple of burned matches on the study floor. I felt a pang of anxiety and knelt down by the trunk. I opened it and sighed with relief. The folder containing the manuscript was still there. I was about to close the lid when I noticed something: the red ribbon of the folder was undone. I picked it up and opened it, leafing through the pages, but nothing seemed to be missing. I closed it again, this time tying the ribbon with a double knot, and put it back in its place. After closing the trunk, I went down to the lower floor. I sat on a chair in the gallery, facing the long corridor that led to the front door, and waited. The minutes went by with infinite cruelty.

Slowly, the awareness of what had happened fell upon me, and my desire to believe and to trust turned to bitterness. I heard the bells of Santa María strike two o’clock. The train to Paris had left the station and Cristina had not returned. I realised then that she had gone, that those brief hours we had shared were nothing but a mirage. I went up to the study again and sat down. The dazzling day I saw through the windowpanes was no longer the colour of luck; I imagined her back in Villa Helius, seeking the shelter of Pedro Vidal’s arms. Resentment slowly poisoned my blood and I laughed at myself and my absurd hopes. I remained there, incapable of taking a single step, watching the city grow dark as the afternoon went by and the shadows lengthened. Finally I stood up and went over to the window, opened it wide and looked out. Beneath me a sheer drop, sufficiently high. Sufficiently high to crush my bones, to turn them into daggers that would pierce my body and let it die in a pool of blood on the courtyard below. I wondered whether the pain would be as bad as I imagined it, or whether the impact would be enough to numb the senses and offer a quick, efficient death.

Then I heard three knocks on the door. One, two, three. Insistent. I turned, still dazed by my thoughts. The call came again. There was someone knocking on the door. My heart skipped a beat and I rushed downstairs, convinced that Cristina had returned, that something had happened along the way that had detained her, that my miserable, despicable feelings of betrayal were unjustified and that today was, after all, the first day of that promised life. I ran to the door and opened it. She was there in the shadows, dressed in white. I was about to embrace her, but then I saw her face, wet with tears. It was not Cristina.

‘David,’ Isabella whispered in a broken voice. ‘Señor Sempere has died.’

Act Three – The Angel’s Game

1

Night had fallen by the time we reached the bookshop. A golden glow broke through the blue of the night outside Sempere & Sons, where about a hundred people had gathered holding candles. Some cried quietly, others looked at each other, not knowing what to do. I recognised some of the faces – friends and customers of Sempere, people to whom the old bookseller had given books as presents, readers who had been initiated into the art of reading through him. As the news spread through the area, more readers and friends arrived, all finding it hard to believe that Señor Sempere had died.

The shop lights were on and I could see Don Gustavo Barceló inside, embracing a young man who could hardly stand. I didn’t realise it was Sempere’s son until Isabella pressed my hand and led me into the bookshop. When he saw me come in, Barceló looked up and smiled dolefully. The bookseller’s son was weeping in his arms and I didn’t have the courage to go and greet him. It was Isabella who went over and put her hand on his back. Sempere’s son turned round and I saw his distraught face. Isabella led him to a chair and helped him sit down; he collapsed like a rag doll and Isabella knelt down beside him and hugged him. I had never felt as proud of anyone as I was that day of Isabella. She no longer seemed a girl but a woman, stronger and wiser than any of the rest us.

Barceló came over and held out a trembling hand. I shook it.

‘It happened a couple of hours ago,’ he explained in a hoarse voice. ‘He’d been left alone in the bookshop for a moment and when his son returned… They say he was arguing with someone… I don’t know. The doctor said it was his heart.’

I swallowed hard.

‘Where is he?’

Barceló nodded towards the door of the back room. I walked over, but before going in I took a deep breath and clenched my fists. Then I walked through the doorway and saw him: he was lying on a table, his hands crossed over his belly. His skin was as white as paper and his features seemed to have sunk in on themselves. His eyes were still open. I found it hard to breathe and felt as if I’d been dealt a strong blow to the stomach. I leaned on the table and tried to steady myself. Then I bent over him and closed his eyelids. I stroked his cheek, which was cold, and looked around me at that world of pages and dreams he had created. I wanted to believe that Sempere was still there, among his books and his friends. I heard steps behind me and turned. Barceló was accompanied by two sombre-looking men, both dressed in black.

‘These gentlemen are from the undertaker’s,’ said Barceló.

They nodded with professional gravitas and went over to examine the body. One of them, who was tall and gaunt, took a brief measurement and said something to his colleague, who wrote down his instructions in a little notebook.

‘Unless there is any change, the funeral will be tomorrow afternoon, in the Pueblo Nuevo Cemetery,’ said Barceló. ‘I thought it best to take charge of the arrangements because his son is devastated, as you can see. And with these things, the sooner…’