I could feel my stomach churning.
“There’s something else,” said Isabella.
“What?”
“A few days later I bumped into Don Anacleto on the stairs and he told me he’d remembered how he knew that woman. He said that at first he couldn’t put his finger on it, but now he was sure he’d seen her, many years ago, in the theater.”
“In the theater?”
Isabella nodded.
I was silent for a long while. Isabella watched me anxiously.
“Now I’m not happy about leaving you here. I shouldn’t have t
old you.”
“No, you did the right thing. I’m fine. Honestly.”
Isabella shook her head.
“I’m staying with you tonight.”
“What about your reputation?”
“It’s your reputation that’s in danger. I’ll just go to my parents’ store to phone the bookshop and let him know.”
“There’s no need, Isabella.”
“There would be no need if you’d accepted that we live in the twentieth century and had installed a telephone in this mausoleum. I’ll be back in a quarter of an hour. No arguments.”
…
During Isabella’s absence, the death of my friend Sempere began to weigh on my conscience. I recalled how the old bookseller had always told me that books have a soul, the soul of the person who wrote them and of those who read them and dream about them. I realized that until the very last moment he had fought to protect me, giving his own life for a bundle of paper and ink in which, he felt, my soul had been inscribed. When Isabella returned, carrying a bag of delicacies from her parents’ shop, she only needed to take one look at me.
“You know that woman,” she said. “The woman who killed Sempere.”
“I think so. Irene Sabino.”
“Isn’t she the one in the old photographs we found? The actress?”
I nodded.
“Why would she want your book?”
“I don’t know.”
Later, after sampling one or two treats from Can Gispert, we sat together in the large armchair in front of the hearth. We were both able to fit on it, and Isabella leaned her head on my shoulder while we stared at the flames.
“The other night I dreamed that I had a son,” she said. “I dreamed that he was calling to me but I couldn’t reach him because I was trapped in a place that was very cold and I couldn’t move. He kept calling me and I couldn’t go to him.”
“It was only a dream.”
“It seemed real.”
“Maybe you should write it as a story,” I suggested.
Isabella shook her head.