The Angel's Game (The Cemetery of Forgotten 2)

“He’s the one who seems a bit green, if I may be frank. He’s got to pull himself together or Isabella will eat him alive. Thank goodness he’s a decent sort, otherwise …”

“How can I repay you?”

“By going upstairs and getting into bed. If you need some spicy company, take a copy of Moll Flanders.”

“You’re right. Good old Defoe never lets you down.”

“Not even if he tries. Go on, off to bed.”

Sempere stood up. He moved with difficulty and his breathing was labored, with a hoarse rattle that frightened me. I took his arm and noticed that his skin was cold.

“Don’t be alarmed, Martín. It’s my metabolism; it’s a little slow.”

“Today it’s as slow as War and Peace.”

“A little nap and I’ll be as good as new.”

I decided to go up with him to the apartment where father and son lived, above the bookshop, and make sure he got under the blankets. It took us a quarter of an hour to negotiate the stairs. On the way we met one of the neighbors, an affable schoolteacher called Don Anacleto, who taught language and literature at the Jesuit school in Calle Caspe.

“How’s life looking today, Sempere, my friend?”

“Rather steep, Don Anacleto.”

With the teacher’s help I managed to reach the first floor with Sempere practically hanging from my neck.

“If you will forgive me, I must retire to rest after a long day spent fighting that pack of primates I have for pupils,” the teacher announced. “I’m telling you, this country is going to disintegrate within one generation. They’ll tear one another to pieces like rats.”

Sempere made a gesture to indicate that I shouldn’t pay too much attention to Don Anacleto.

“He’s a good man,” he whispered, “but he drowns in a glass of water.”

When I stepped into the apartment I was suddenly reminded of that distant morning when I had arrived there covered in blood, holding a copy of Great Expectations. I recalled how Sempere had carried me up to his home and given me a cup of hot cocoa after the doctor left and how he’d whispered soothing words, cleaning the blood off my body with a warm towel and a gentleness that nobody had ever shown me before. At that time Sempere was a strong man and to me he seemed like a giant in every way; without him I don’t think I would have survived those years of scant hope. Little or nothing remained of that strength as I held him in my arms to help him into bed and covered him with a couple of blankets. I sat down next to him and took his hand, not knowing what to do.

“Listen, if we’re both going to start crying our eyes out you’d better leave,” he said.

“Take care, you hear me?”

“I’ll wrap myself in cotton wool, don’t worry.”

I nodded and started toward the door.

“Martín?”

At the doorway I turned round. Sempere was looking at me with the same anxiety he had shown that morning long ago, when I’d lost a few teeth and much of my innocence. I left before he could ask me what was wrong.

31

One of the first expedients of the professional writer that Isabella had learned from me was the art of procrastination. Every veteran in the trade knows that any activity, from sharpening a pencil to cataloging daydreams, takes precedence over sitting down at one’s desk and squeezing one’s brain. Isabella had absorbed this fundamental lesson by osmosis and when I got home, instead of finding her at her desk, I surprised her in the kitchen as she was giving the last touches to a dinner that smelled and looked as if its preparation had been a question of a few hours.

“Are we celebrating something?” I asked.

“With that face of yours, I don’t think so.”

“What’s the smell?”

“Caramelized duck with baked pears and chocolate sauce. I found the recipe in one of your cookbooks.”

“I don’t own any cookbooks.”