‘What if he gets lost?’
‘He seems to be on the ball. He’ll work it out.’
I wasn’t so sure, but I didn’t want to contradict Isaac. I walked with him to the room that doubled as his office and accepted the cup of coffee he was offering me.
‘Have you explained the rules to your friend?’
‘Fermín and rules are incompatible notions. But I have summed up the basics and he replied with a convincing: “But of course, who do you take me for?”’
While Isaac filled my cup again he caught me gazing at a photograph of his daughter Nuria hanging above his desk.
‘It will soon be two years since she left us,’ he said with a sadness that cut through the air.
I looked down, distressed. A hundred years could go by and the death of Nuria Montfort would still be on my mind, as would the certainty that if I’d never met her she might still be alive. Isaac caressed the photograph with his eyes.
‘I’m getting old, Sempere. It’s about time someone took my post.’
I was about to protest at such a suggestion when Fermín walked in with his face all flushed, and panting as if he’d just run a marathon.
‘So?’ asked Isaac. ‘What do you think?’
‘Glorious. Although it doesn’t appear to have a toilet. At least not that I noticed.’
‘I hope you didn’t pee in some corner.’
‘I made a superhuman effort to hold it in and make it back here.’
‘It’s that door on the left. You’ll have to pull the chain twice, the first time it never works.’
While Fermín relieved himself, Isaac poured out a cup of coffee which awaited him steaming hot when he returned.
‘I have a few questions I’d like to ask you, Don Isaac.’
‘Fermín, I don’t think …’ I pleaded.
‘It’s fine. Go ahead, ask.’
‘The first lot is related to the history of the premises. The second one concerns technical and architectural works. And the third is basically bibliographic …’
Isaac laughed. It was the first time I’d ever heard him laugh and I didn’t know whether to take it as a sign from heaven or the presage of some imminent disaster.
‘First you’ll have to choose the book you want to save,’ Isaac proposed.
‘I’ve had my eye on a few, but even if it’s just for sentimental reasons, I’ve selected this one, if that’s all right.’
He pulled a book out of his pocket. It was bound in red leather, with the title embossed in gold letters and an engraving of a skull on the title page.
‘Well I never: City of the Damned, episode thirteen: Daphne and the impossible staircase, by David Martín,’ Isaac read.
‘An old friend,’ Fermín explained.
‘You don’t say. Strangely enough, there was a time when I’d often see him around here,’ said Isaac.
‘That must have been before the war,’ I remarked.
‘No, no … I saw him some time later.’
Fermín and I looked at one another. I wondered whether Isaac had been right and he was beginning to get too old for the job.