He survived in Paris thanks to Irene Marceau’s charity, and she was the only person who encouraged him to keep on writing. Her favorite books were romantic novels and biographies of saints and martyrs, which intrigued her enormously. In her opinion Julián’s problem was that his heart was poisoned; that was why he could only write those stories of horror and darkness. Despite her objections, it was thanks to Irene that Julián had found a publisher for his first novels. She was the one who had provided him with that attic in which he hid from the world, the one who dressed him and took him out to get a bit of sun and fresh air, who bought him books and made him go to mass with her on Sundays, followed by a stroll through the Tuileries. Irene Marceau kept him alive without asking for anything in return except his friendship and the promise that he would continue writing. In time she would allow him, occasionally, to take one of her girls up to the attic, even if they were only going to sleep hugging each other. Irene joked that the girls were almost as lonely as he was, and all they wanted was a bit of affection.
“My neighbor, Monsieur Darcieu, thinks I’m the luckiest man in the universe,” he told me.
I asked him why he had never returned to Barcelona in search of Penélope. He fell into a long, deep silence, and when I looked at his face in the dark, I saw it was lined with tears. Without quite knowing what I was doing, I knelt down next to him and hugged him. We remained like that, embracing, until dawn caught us by surprise. I no longer know who kissed whom first, nor whether it matters. I know I found his lips and let him caress me without realizing that I, too, was crying and didn’t know why. That dawn, and all the ones that followed in the two weeks I spent with Julián, we made love to each other on the floor, never saying a word. Later, sitt
ing in a café or strolling through the streets, I would look into his eyes and know, without any need to question him, that he still loved Penélope. I remember that during those days I learned to hate that seventeen-year-old girl (for Penélope was always seventeen to me) whom I had never met and who now haunted my dreams. I invented excuses for cabling Cabestany to prolong my stay. I no longer cared whether I lost my job or the gray existence I had left behind in Barcelona. I have often asked myself whether I arrived in Paris with such an empty life that I fell into Julián’s arms like Irene Marceau’s girls, who, despite themselves, craved affection. All I know is that those two weeks I spent with Julián were the only time in my life when I felt, for once, that I was myself, when I understood with the hopeless clarity of what cannot be explained that I would never be able to love another man the way I loved Julián, even if I spent the rest of my days trying.
One day Julián fell asleep in my arms, exhausted. The previous afternoon, as we passed by a pawnshop, he had stopped to show me a fountain pen that had been on display there for years. According to the pawnbroker, it had once belonged to Victor Hugo. Julián had never owned even a fraction of the means to buy that pen, but he would stop and look at it every day. I dressed quietly and went down to the pawnshop. The pen cost a fortune, which I didn’t have, but the pawnbroker said that he’d accept a check in pesetas on any Spanish bank with a branch in Paris. Before she died, my mother had promised me she would save up to buy me a wedding dress. Victor Hugo’s pen took care of that, veil and all, and although I knew it was madness, I have never spent any sum of money with more satisfaction. When I left the shop with the fabulous case, I noticed that a woman was following me. She was a very elegant lady, with silvery hair and the bluest eyes I have ever seen. She came up to me and introduced herself. She was Irene Marceau, Julián’s patron. Hervé, my guide, had spoken to her about me. She only wanted to meet me and ask me whether I was the woman Julián had been waiting for all those years. I didn’t have to reply. Irene nodded in sympathy and kissed my cheek. I watched her walking away down the street, and at that moment I understood that Julián would never be mine. I went back to the attic with the pen case hidden in my bag. Julián was awake and waiting for me. He undressed me without saying anything, and we made love for the last time. When he asked me why I was crying, I told him they were tears of joy. Later, when Julián went down for some food, I packed my bags and placed the case with the pen on his typewriter. I put the manuscript of the novel in my suitcase and left before Julián returned. On the landing I came upon Monsieur Darcieu, the old conjuror who read the palms of young ladies in exchange for a kiss. He took my left hand and gazed at me sadly.
“Vous avez poison au coeur, mademoiselle.”
When I tried to pay him his fee, he shook his head gently, and instead it was he who kissed my hand.
I GOT TO THE GARE D’ AUSTERLITZ JUST IN TIME TO CATCH THE TWELVE o’clock train to Barcelona. The ticket inspector who sold me the ticket asked me whether I was feeling all right. I nodded and shut myself up in the compartment. The train was already leaving when I looked out the window and caught a glimpse of Julián on the platform, in the same place I’d seen him for the first time. I closed my eyes and didn’t open them again until we had lost sight of the station and that bewitching city to which I could never return. I arrived in Barcelona the following morning, as day was breaking. It was my twenty-fourth birthday, and I knew that the best part of my life was already behind me.
·2·
AFTER I RETURNED TO BARCELONA, I LET SOME TIME PASS BEFORE visiting Miquel Moliner again. I needed to get Julián out of my head, and I realized that if Miquel were to ask me about him, I wouldn’t know what to say. When we did meet again, I didn’t need to tell him anything. Miquel just looked me in the eyes and knew. He seemed to me thinner than before my trip to Paris; his face had an almost unhealthy pallor, which I attributed to the enormous workload with which he punished himself. He admitted that he was going through financial difficulties. He had spent almost all the money from his inheritance on his philanthropic causes, and now his brothers’ lawyers were trying to evict him from his home, claiming that a clause in old Mr. Moliner’s will specified that he could live there only providing he kept it in good condition and could prove he had the financial means for the upkeep of the property. Otherwise the Puertaferrissa mansion would pass into the custody of his brothers.
“Even before dying, my father sensed that I was going to spend his money on all the things he most detested in life, down to the last céntimo.”
His income as a newspaper columnist and translator was far from enough to maintain that sort of residence.
“Making money isn’t hard in itself,” he complained. “What’s hard is to earn it doing something worth devoting one’s life to.”
I suspected that he was beginning to drink secretly. Sometimes his hands shook. Every Sunday I went over to see him and made him come out into the street and get away from his desk and his encyclopedias. I knew it hurt him to see me. He acted as if he didn’t remember that he’d offered to marry me and I’d refused him, but at times I’d catch him gazing at me with a look of mingled yearning and defeat. My sole excuse for submitting him to such cruelty was purely selfish: only Miquel knew the truth about Julián and Penélope Aldaya.
During those months I spent away from Julián, Penélope Aldaya became a specter that stole my sleep and my thoughts. I could still remember the expression of disappointment on the face of Irene Marceau when she realized I was not the woman Julián was waiting for. Penélope Aldaya, treacherously absent, was too powerful an enemy for me. She was invisible, so I imagined her as perfect. Next to her I was unworthy, vulgar, all too real. I had never thought it possible to hate someone so much and so despite myself—to hate someone I didn’t even know, whom I had never seen in my life. I suppose I thought that if I met her face-to-face, if I could prove to myself that she was flesh and blood, her spell would break and Julián would be free again. And I with him. I wanted to believe that it was only a matter of time and patience. Sooner or later Miquel would tell me the truth. And the truth would liberate me.
One day, as we strolled through the cathedral cloister, Miquel once again hinted at his interest in me. I looked at him and saw a lonely man, devoid of hope. I knew what I was doing when I took him home and let myself be seduced by him. I knew I was deceiving him and that he knew, too, but had nothing else in the world. That is how we became lovers, out of desperation. I saw in his eyes what I would have wanted to see in Julián’s. I felt that by giving myself to him I was taking revenge on Julián and Penélope and on everything that was denied to me. Miquel, who was ill with desire and loneliness, knew that our love was a farce, but even so he couldn’t let me go. Every day he drank more heavily and often could hardly make love to me. He would then joke bitterly that, after all, we’d turned into the perfect married couple in record time. We were hurting each other through spite and cowardice. One night, almost a year after I had returned from Paris, I asked him to tell me the truth about Penélope. Miquel had been drinking, and he became violent, as I’d never seen him before. In his rage he insulted me and accused me of never having loved him, of being a vulgar whore. He tore my clothes off me, shredding them in the process, and when he tried to force himself on me, I lay down, offering my body without resistance, crying to myself. Miquel broke down and begged me to forgive him. How I wished I were able to love him and not Julián, able to choose to remain by his side. But I couldn’t. We embraced in the dark, and I asked forgiveness for all the pain I had caused him. He then told me that if it mattered so much to me, he would tell me the truth about Penélope Aldaya. Another one of my mistakes.
That Sunday in 1919, when Miquel Moliner went to the station to give his friend Julián his ticket to Paris and see him off, Miquel already knew that Penélope would not be coming to the rendezvous. Two days earlier, when Don Ricardo Aldaya had returned from Madrid, his wife had confessed that she’d surprised Julián and their daughter, Penélope, in the governess’s room. Jorge Aldaya had revealed this to Miquel the next day, making him swear he would never tell anyone. Jorge explained how, when he was given the news, Don Ricardo exploded with anger and rushed up to Penélope’s room, shouting like a madman. When she heard her father’s yells, Penélope locked her door and wept with terror. Don Ricardo kicked in the door and found his daughter on her knees, trembling and begging for mercy. Don Ricardo then slapped her in the face so hard that she fell down. Not even Jorge was able to repeat the words Don Ricardo hurled at her in his fury. All the members of the family and the servants waited downstairs, terrified, not knowing what to do. Jorge hid in his room, in the dark, but even there he could hear Don Ricardo’s shouts. Jacinta was dismissed that same day. Don Ricardo didn’t even deign to see her. He ordered the servants to throw her out of the house and threatened them with a similar fate if any of them had any contact with her again.
When Don Ricardo went down to the library, it was already midnight. He’d left Penélope locked up in what had been Jacinta’s bedroom and strictly forbade anyone, whether members of his staff or family, to go up to see her. From his room Jorge heard his parents talking on the ground floor. The doctor arrived in the early hours. Mrs. Aldaya led him to Jacinta’s room and waited by the door while the doctor examined Penélope. When he came out, the doctor only nodded and collected his fee. Jorge heard Don Ricardo telling him that if he made any comments to anyone about what he’d seen there, he would personally ensure that his reputation was ruined and he was unable to practice medicine ever again. Jorge knew what that meant.
Jorge admitted that he was very worried about Penélope and Julián. He had never seen his father so beside himself with rage. Even taking into account the offense committed by the lovers, he could not understand the intensity of his father’s anger. There had to be something else, he said. Don Ricardo had already ordered San Gabriel’s School to expel Julián and had got in touch with the boy’s father, the hatter, about sending him off to the army immediately. When Miquel heard all this, he decided he couldn’t tell Julián the truth. If he disclosed to Julián that Don Ricardo was keeping Penélope locked up and that she might be carrying their child, Julián would never take that train to Paris. He knew that if his friend remained in Barcelona, that would be the end of him. So he decided to deceive him and let him go to Paris without knowing what had happened; he would let him think that Penélope was going to join him later. When he said good-bye to Julián that day in the Estación de Francia, even Miquel wanted to believe that not all was lost.
Some days later, when it was discovered that Julián had disappeared, all hell broke l
oose. Don Ricardo Aldaya was seething. He set half the police department in pursuit of the fugitive, but without success. He then accused the hatter of having sabotaged the plan they had agreed on and threatened him with total ruin. The hatter, who couldn’t understand what was going on, in turn accused his wife, Sophie, of having plotted the escape of that despicable son and threatened to throw her out of their home. It didn’t occur to anyone that it was Miquel Moliner who had planned the whole thing—to anyone except Jorge Aldaya, who went to see him a fortnight later. He no longer exuded the fear and anxiety that had gripped him earlier. This was a different Jorge Aldaya, an adult robbed of all innocence. Whatever it was that hid behind Don Ricardo’s anger, Jorge had discovered it. The reason for his visit was clear: he knew it was Miquel who had helped Julián to escape. He told him their friendship was over, that he didn’t ever want to see him again, and he threatened to kill him if he told anyone what he, Jorge, had revealed to him two weeks before.
A few weeks later, Miquel received a letter, with a false sender’s name, posted by Julián in Paris. In it he gave him his address, told him he was well and missed him, and inquired after his mother and Penélope. He included a letter addressed to Penélope, for Miquel to post from Barcelona, the first of many that Penélope would never read. Miquel prudently allowed a few months to go by. He wrote to Julián once a week, mentioning only what he felt was suitable, which was almost nothing. Julián, in turn, told him about Paris, about how difficult everything was turning out to be, how lonely and desperate he felt. Miquel sent him money, books, and his friendship. In every letter Julián would include another one for Penélope. Miquel mailed them from different post offices, even though he knew it was useless. In his letters Julián never stopped asking after Penélope. Miquel couldn’t tell him anything. He knew from Jacinta that Penélope had not left the house on Avenida del Tibidabo since her father had locked her in the room on the third floor.
One night Jorge Aldaya waylaid Miquel in the dark, two blocks from his home. “Have you come to kill me already?” asked Miquel. Jorge said that he had come to do him and his friend Julián a favor. He handed him a letter and advised him to make sure it reached Julián, wherever he was hiding. “For everyone’s sake,” he declared portentously. The envelope contained a sheet of paper handwritten by Penélope Aldaya.
Dear Julián,
I’m writing to notify you of my forthcoming marriage and to entreat you not to write to me anymore, to forget me and rebuild your life. I don’t bear you any grudge, but I wouldn’t be honest if I didn’t confess to you that I have never loved you and never will be able to love you. I wish you the best, wherever you may be.
Penélope
Miquel read and reread the letter a thousand times. The handwriting was unmistakable, but he didn’t believe for a moment that Penélope had written that letter willingly: “…wherever you may be.” Penélope knew perfectly well where Julián was: in Paris, waiting for her. If she pretended not to know his whereabouts, Miquel reflected, it was to protect him. For that same reason, Miquel couldn’t understand what could have induced her to write those words. What further threats could Don Ricardo Aldaya bring down on her, on top of keeping her locked up for months in that room like a prisoner? More than anyone, Penélope knew that her letter was a poisoned dagger for Julián’s heart: a young boy of nineteen, lost in a distant and hostile city, abandoned by all, surviving only through his false hopes of seeing her again. What did she want to protect him from by pushing him away in that way? After much consideration, Miquel decided not to send the letter. Not without first knowing the reason for it. Without a good reason, it wouldn’t be his hand that would plunge that dagger into his friend’s soul.
Some days later he found out that Don Ricardo Aldaya, tired of seeing Jacinta waiting like a sentry at the doors of his house, begging for news of Penélope, had used his contacts to get her admitted into the Horta lunatic asylum. When Miquel Moliner tried to see her, he was denied access. Jacinta Coronado was to spend the first three months in solitary confinement. After three months of silence and darkness, he was told by one of the doctors—a young, cheerful individual—the patient’s submission was guaranteed. Following a hunch, Miquel decided to pay a visit to the pensión where Jacinta had been staying after her dismissal. When he identified himself, the landlady remembered that Jacinta had left a note for him and still owed her three weeks’ rent. He paid the debt, whose existence he doubted, and took the note. In it the governess explained that she had been informed that Laura, one of the Aldayas’ servants, had been dismissed when it was discovered that she had secretly posted a letter from Penélope to Julián. Miquel deduced that the only address to which Penélope, from her captivity, would have sent the letter was the apartment of Julián’s parents on Ronda de San Antonio, hoping that they, in turn, would make sure it reached him in Paris.
So he decided to visit Sophie Carax to recover the letter and forward it to Julián. When he arrived at the home of the Fortunys, Miquel was in for an unpleasant surprise: Sophie Carax no longer lived there. She had abandoned her husband a few days earlier—that, at least, was the rumor that was doing the rounds of the neighbors. Miquel then tried to speak to the hatter, who spent his days shut away in his shop, consumed by anger and humiliation. Miquel told him that he’d come to collect a letter that must have arrived for his son, Julián, a few days earlier.
“I have no son” was the only answer he received.