“Whatever you say, Mr. Barceló. But I’ll sleep on top of the cover. That goes without saying.”
Barceló waited ceremoniously for Bernarda to retire. He helped himself to seven lumps of sugar and began to stir the coffee with the spoon, his catlike smile discernible behind dark clouds of Dutch tobacco.
“As you see, I must run my house with a firm hand.”
“Yes, you’re certainly a tough one, Don Gustavo.”
“And you’re a smooth talker. Tell me, Daniel, now that nobody can hear us. Why isn’t it a good idea to report what has happened to the police?”
“Because they already know.”
“You mean…?”
I nodded.
“What kind of trouble are you two in, if you don’t mind my asking?”
I sighed.
“Anything I can help with?”
I looked up. Barceló smiled at me without malice, for once putting aside his ironic stance.
“Does all this have, by some chance, anything to do with that book by Carax you didn’t want to sell me when you should have?”
The question caught me totally by surprise.
“I could help you,” he offered. “I have a surplus of what you both lack: money and common sense.”
“Believe me, Don Gustavo, I’ve already got too many people involved in this business.”
“One more won’t make much difference, then. Come on, confide in me. Imagine that I’m your father confessor.”
“I haven’t been to confession for years.”
“It shows on your face.”
·33·
GUSTAVO BARCELÓ HAD A WAY OF LISTENING THAT SEEMED BOTH contemplative and Solomonic, like a doctor or a pope. He observed me with his hands joined under his chin and his elbows on his desk, as if in prayer. His eyes were wide open, and he nodded here and there, as if he could detect symptoms in the flow of my narrative and was composing his own diagnosis. Every time I paused, the bookseller raised his eyebrows inquisitively and beckoned with his right hand for me to continue unraveling my jumbled story, which seemed to amuse him enormously. Every now and then, he would raise a hand and take notes, or he would stare into space as if he wanted to consider the implications of what I was telling him. More often than not, he would lick his lips and smile ironically, a gesture I attributed either to my ingenuousness or to the foolishness of my conjectures.
“Listen, if you think this is nonsense, I’ll shut up.”
“On the contrary. Fools talk, cowards are silent, wise men listen.”
“Who said that? Seneca?”
“No. Braulio Recolons, who runs a pork butcher’s on Calle Avignon and has a great talent for both making sausages and composing witty aphorisms. Please continue. You were telling me about this lively girl….”
“Bea. And that is my business and has nothing to do with everything else.”
Barceló tried to keep his laughter to himself. I was about to continue the narration of my adventures when Dr. Soldevila poked his head around the door of the study looking tired and out of breath.
“Please excuse me. I’m leaving now. The patient is well, and, for lack of a better expression, he’s full of beans. This gentleman will outlive us all. He’s even saying that the sedatives have gone to his head and given him a high. He refuses to rest and insists that he must have a word with Daniel about matters he has not wished to explain to me, claiming that he doesn’t believe in the Hippocratic, or hypocritical, oath, as he calls it.”
“We’ll go and see him right away. And please forgive poor Fermín. He’s obviously still in shock.”
“Perhaps, but I wouldn’t rule out shamelessness. There was no way of stopping him pinching the nurse’s bottom and reciting rhymed couplets in praise of her firm and shapely thighs.”