“They’ll be upset, I suppose, but they’ll get over it. They would prefer me to marry a prosperous merchant who sold sausages rather than books, but they’ll just have to put up with it.”
“It could be worse,” I remarked.
Isabella agreed.
“Yes. I could end up with a writer.”
We looked at each other for a long time, until she extracted herself from the armchair. She collected her coat and buttoned it up, her back turned to me.
“I must go,” she said.
“Thanks for the company,” I replied.
“Don’t let her escape,” said Isabella. “Search for her, wherever she may be, and tell her you love her, even if it’s a lie. We girls like to hear that kind of thing.”
She turned round and leaned over to brush my lips with hers. Then she squeezed my hand and left without saying good-bye.
5
I spent the rest of that week scouring Barcelona for anyone who might remember having seen Cristina over the last month. I visited the places I’d shared with her and traced Vidal’s favorite route through cafés, restaurants, and elegant shops, all in vain. I showed everyone I met a photograph from the album Cristina had left in my house and asked whether they had seen her recently. Somewhere, I forget where, I came across a person who recognized her and remembered having seen her with Vidal sometime or other. Other people even remembered her name, but nobody had seen her in weeks. On the fourth day, I began to suspect that Cristina had left the tower house that morning after I went to buy the train tickets and had evaporated off the face of the earth.
Then I remembered that Vidal’s family kept a room permanently reserved at Hotel España, on Calle Sant Pau, behind the Liceo theater. It was used whenever a member of the family visited the opera and didn’t feel like returning to Pedralbes in the early hours. I knew that Vidal and his father had also used it, at least in their golden years, to enjoy the company of young ladies whose presence in their official residences in Pedralbes would have led to undesirable rumors—due to either the low or the high birth of the lady in question. More than once Vidal had offered the room to me when I still lived in Doña Carmen’s pension in case, as he put it, I felt like undressing a damsel somewhere that wasn’t quite so alarming. I didn’t think Cristina would have chosen the hotel room as a refuge—if she knew of its existence, that is—but it was the only place left on my list and nowhere else had occurred to me.
It was getting dark when I arrived at Hotel España and asked to speak to the manager, presenting myself as Señor Vidal’s friend. When I showed him Cristina’s photograph, the manager, a gentleman who mistook frostiness for discretion, smiled politely and told me that “other” members of Vidal’s staff had already been there a few weeks earlier, asking after that same person, and he had told them what he was telling me now: he had never seen that lady in the hotel. I thanked him for his icy kindness and walked away in defeat.
As I passed the glass doors that led into the dining room, I thought I registered a familiar profile. The boss was sitting at one of the tables, the only guest there, eating what looked like lumps of sugar. I was about to make a quick getaway when he turned and waved at me, smiling. I cursed my luck and waved back. He signaled for me to join him. I walked through the dining room door, dragging my feet.
“What a lovely surprise to see you here, dear friend. I was just thinking about you,” said Corelli.
I shook hands with him reluctantly.
“I thought you were out of town,” I said.
“I came back sooner than planned. Would you care for a drink?”
I declined. He asked me to sit down at his table and I obeyed. The boss wore his usual three-piece suit of black wool and a red silk tie. As always, he was impeccably attired, but something didn’t quite add up. It took me a few seconds to notice what it was—the angel brooch was not in his lapel. Corelli followed the direction of my gaze.
“Alas, I’ve lost it, and I don’t know where,” he explained.
“I hope it wasn’t too valuable.”
“Its value was purely sentimental. But let’s talk about more important matters. How are you, my dear friend? I’ve missed our conversations enormously, despite our occasional disagreements. It’s difficult to find a good conversationalist.”
“You overrate me, Señor Corelli.”
“On the contrary.”
A brief silence followed, those bottomless eyes drilling into mine. I told myself that I preferred him when he embarked on his usual banal conversations—when he stopped speaking his face seemed to change and the air thickened around him.
“Are you staying here?” I asked to break the silence.
“No, I’m still in the house by Güell Park. I arranged to meet a friend here this afternoon, but he seems to be late. The manners of some people are deplorable.”
“There can’t be many people who dare to stand you up, Señor Corelli.”
The boss looked me straight in the eye.
“Not many. In fact, the only person I can think of is you.”