The little man sighed philosophically.
“Well, they also have timetables and in the fifteen years I’ve been
here I haven’t seen a single train leave on time,” he remarked.
The porter continued with his cleaning and fifteen minutes later I heard the window of a ticket office opening. I walked over and smiled at the clerk.
“I thought you opened at seven,” I said.
“That’s what the notice says. What do you want?”
“Two first-class tickets to Paris on the midday train.”
“For today?”
“If that’s not too much trouble.”
It took him almost a quarter of an hour. Once he had finished his masterpiece, he dropped the tickets on the counter disdainfully.
“One o’clock. Platform 4. Don’t be late.”
I paid and, as I didn’t then leave, he gave me a hostile look.
“Anything else?”
I smiled and shook my head, at which point he closed the window in my face. I turned and crossed the immaculate vestibule, its brilliant shine courtesy of the porter, who waved at me from afar and wished me a bon voyage.
…
The central offices of the Banco Hispano Colonial on Calle Fontanella were reminiscent of a temple. A huge portico gave way to a nave, which was flanked by statues and extended as far as a row of windows that looked like an altar. On either side of this altar, like side-chapels and confessionals, were oak tables and easy chairs fit for a general, with a small army of auditors and other staff in attendance, neatly dressed and sporting friendly smiles. I withdrew four thousand francs and received instructions on how to take out money at their Paris branch, at the intersection of Rue de Rennes and Boulevard Raspail, near the hotel Cristina had mentioned. With that small fortune in my pocket I said good-bye, disregarding the warning given to me by the manager about the risks of walking the streets with that amount of cash in my pocket.
The sun was rising in a blue sky the color 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, certain 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 short list of the ones I considered essential. Slowly, without noticing, lying in 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 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. Phosphorous. 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. Feeling a pang of anxiety, I 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 the folder 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 all 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 realized 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 window-panes was no longer the color 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 to the window, I 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 knocks came again. 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.”
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