The Angel's Game (21 page)

13

The days passed. Accustomed as I was to years of living alone and to that state of methodical and undervalued anarchy common to bachelors, the continued presence of a woman in the house, even though she was an unruly adolescent with a volatile temper, was beginning to play havoc with my daily routine. I believed in controlled disorder; Isabella didn’t. I believed that objects find their own place in the chaos of a household; Isabella didn’t. I believed in solitude and silence; Isabella didn’t. In just a couple of days I discovered that I was no longer able to find anything in my own home. If I was looking for a paperknife, or a glass, or a pair of shoes, I had to ask Isabella where providence had kindly inspired her to hide them.

‘I don’t hide anything. I put things in their place. Which is different.’

Not a day went by when I didn’t feel the urge to strangle her half a dozen times. When I took refuge in my study, searching for peace and quiet in which to think, Isabella would appear after a few minutes, a smile on her face, bringing me a cup of tea or some biscuits. She would wander around the study, look out of the window, tidy everything I had on my desk and then she would ask me what I was doing there, so quiet and mysterious. I discovered that seventeen-year-old girls have such huge verbal energy that their brain drives them to expend it every twenty seconds. On the third day I decided I had to find her a boyfriend - if possible a deaf one.

‘Isabella, how is it that a girl as attractive as you has no suitors?’

‘Who says I don’t?’

‘Isn’t there any boy you like?’

‘Boys my age are boring. They have nothing to say and half of them seem like complete idiots.’

I was going to say that they didn’t improve with age but didn’t want to spoil her illusions.

‘So what age do you like them?’

‘Old. Like you.’

‘Do I seem old to you?’

‘Well, you’re not exactly a spring chicken.’

It was preferable to think she was pulling my leg than to accept the punch below the belt that hurt my vanity. I decided to respond with a few drops of sarcasm.

‘The good news is that young girls like old men, and the bad news is that old men, especially decrepit, slobbering old men, like young girls.’

‘I know. I wasn’t born yesterday.’

Isabella observed me. She was scheming and smiled with a hint of malice.

‘Do you like young girls too?’

The answer was on my lips before she had asked the question. I adopted a masterful, impartial tone, like a professor of geography.

‘I liked them when I was your age. Now I generally like girls of my own age.’

‘At your age they’re no longer girls; they’re young women or, to be precise, ladies.’

‘End of argument. Have you nothing to do downstairs?’

‘No.’

‘Then start writing. You’re not here to wash the dishes and hide my things. You’re here because you said you wanted to learn to write and I’m the only idiot you know who can help you.’

‘There’s no need to get angry. It’s just that I lack inspiration.’

‘Inspiration comes when you stick your elbows on the table, your bottom on the chair and you start sweating. Choose a theme, an idea, and squeeze your brain until it hurts. That’s called inspiration.’

‘I have a topic.’

‘Hallelujah.’

‘I’m going to write about you.’

A long silence as we exchanged glances, like opponents across a game board.

‘Why?’

‘Because I find you interesting. And strange.’

‘And old.’

‘And touchy. Almost like a boy of my age.’

Despite myself I was beginning to get used to Isabella’s company, to her jibes and to the light she had brought into that house. If things continued this way, my worst fears were going to come true and we’d end up being friends.

‘What about you? Have you found a subject with all those whopping great tomes you’re consulting?’

I decided that the less I told Isabella about my commission, the better.

‘I’m still at the research stage.’

‘Research? And how does that work?’

‘Basically, you read thousands of pages to learn what you need to know and to get to the heart of a subject, to its emotional truth, and then you shed all that knowledge and start again at square one.’

Isabella sighed.

‘What is emotional truth?’

‘It’s sincerity within fiction.’

‘So, does one have to be an honest, good person to write fiction?’

‘No. One has to be skilled. Emotional truth is not a moral quality, it’s a technique.’

‘You sound like a scientist,’ protested Isabella.

‘Literature, at least good literature, is science tempered with the blood of art. Like architecture or music.’

‘I thought it was something that sprang from the artist, just like that, all of a sudden.’

‘The only things that spring all of a sudden are unwanted body hair and warts.’

Isabella considered these revelations without much enthusiasm.

‘You’re saying all this to discourage me and make me go home.’

‘I should be so lucky!’

‘You’re the worst teacher in the world.’

‘It’s the student who makes the teacher, not the other way round.’

‘It’s impossible to argue with you because you know all the rhetorical tricks. It’s not fair.’

‘Nothing is fair. The most one can hope is for things to be logical. Justice is a rare illness in a world that is otherwise a picture of health.’

‘Amen. Is that what happens as you grow older? Do people stop believing in things, as you have?’

‘No. Most people, as they grow old, continue to believe in nonsense, usually even greater nonsense. I swim against the tide because I like to annoy.’

‘Tell me something I don’t know! Well, when I’m older I’ll go on believing in things,’ Isabella threatened.

‘Good luck.’

‘And what’s more, I believe in you.’

She didn’t look away as I fixed my eyes on hers.

‘Because you don’t know me.’

‘That’s what you think. You’re not as mysterious as you imagine.’

‘I don’t pretend to be mysterious.’

‘That was a kind substitute for unpleasant. I also know a few rhetorical tricks.’

‘That isn’t rhetoric. It’s irony. They’re two different things.’

‘Do you always have to win every argument?’

‘When it’s as easy as this, yes.’

‘And that man, the boss . . .’

‘Corelli?’

‘Corelli. Does he make it easy for you?’

‘No. Corelli knows even more tricks than I do.’

‘That’s what I thought. Do you trust him?’

‘Why do you ask?’

‘I don’t know. Do you trust him?’

‘Why shouldn’t I trust him?’

Isabella shrugged her shoulders.

‘What exactly has he commissioned you to write? Aren’t you going to tell me?’

‘I told you. He wants me to write a book for his publishing company.’

‘A novel?’

‘Not exactly. More like a fable. A legend.’

‘A book for children?’

‘Something like that.’

‘And you’re going to do it?’

‘He pays very well.’

Isabella frowned.

‘Is that why you write? Because they pay you well?’

‘Sometimes.’

‘And this time?’

‘This time I’m going to write the book because I have to.’

‘Are in you debt to him?’

‘You could put it that way, I suppose.’

Isabella weighed up the matter. She was about to say something, but thought twice about it and bit her lip. Instead, she gave me an innocent smile and one of her angelic looks with which she was capable of changing the subject with a simple batting of her eyelids.

‘I’d also like to be paid to write,’ she said.

‘Anyone who writes would like the same, but it doesn’t mean that he or she will achieve it.’

‘And how do you achieve it?’

‘You begin by going down to the gallery, taking pen and paper—’

‘Digging your elbows in and squeezing your brain until it hurts. I know.’

She looked into my eyes, hesitating. She’d been staying in my house for a week and a half and I still showed no signs of sending her home. I imagined she was asking herself when I was going to do it, or why I hadn’t done it yet. I also asked myself that very question and could find no answer.

‘I like being your assistant, even if you are the way you are,’ she said at last.

The girl was staring at me as if her life depended on a kind word. I yielded to temptation. Good words are a vain benevolence that demand no sacrifice and are more appreciated than real acts of kindness.

‘I also like you being my assistant, Isabella, even if I am the way I am. And I will like it even more when there is no longer any need for you to be my assistant as you will have nothing more to learn from me.’

‘Do you think I have potential?’

‘I have no doubt whatsoever. In ten years you’ll be the teacher and I’ll be the apprentice,’ I said, repeating words that still tasted of treason.

‘You liar,’ she said, kissing me sweetly on the cheek before running off down the stairs.

14

That afternoon I left Isabella sitting at the desk we had set up for her in the gallery, facing her blank pages, while I went over to Gustavo Barceló’s bookshop on Calle Fernando hoping to find a good, readable edition of the Bible. All the sets of New and Old Testaments I had in the house were printed in microscopic type on thin, almost translucent onionskin paper and reading them, rather than bringing about fervour and divine inspiration, only induced migraines. Barceló, who among many other things was a persistent collector of holy books and apocryphal Christian texts, had a private room at the back of his shop filled with a formidable assortment of Gospels, lives of saints and holy people, and all kinds of other religious texts.

When I walked into the bookshop, one of the assistants rushed into the back-room office to alert the boss. Barceló emerged looking euphoric.

‘Bless my eyes! Sempere told me you’d been reborn, but this is quite something. Next to you, Valentino looks like someone just back from the salt mines. Where have you been hiding, you rogue?’

‘Oh, here and there,’ I said.

‘Everywhere except at Vidal’s wedding party. You were sorely missed, my friend.’

‘I doubt that.’

The bookseller nodded, implying that he understood my wish not to discuss the matter.

‘Will you accept a cup of tea?’

‘Or two. And a Bible. If possible, one that is easy to read.’

‘That won’t be a problem,’ said the bookseller. ‘Dalmau?’

The shop assistant called Dalmau came over obligingly.

‘Dalmau, our friend Martín here needs a Bible that is legible, not decorative. I’m thinking of Torres Amat, 1825. What do you think?’

One of the peculiarities of Barceló’s bookshop was that books were spoken about as if they were exquisite wines, catalogued by bouquet, aroma, consistency and vintage.

‘An excellent choice, Señor Barceló, although I’d be more inclined towards the updated and revised edition.’

‘Eighteen sixty?’

‘Eighteen ninety-three.’

‘Of course. That’s it! Wrap it up for our friend Martín and put it on the house.’

‘Certainly not,’ I objected.

‘The day I charge an unbeliever like you for the word of God will be the day I’m struck dead by lightning, and with good reason.’

Dalmau rushed off in search of my Bible and I followed Barceló into his office, where the bookseller poured two cups of tea and offered me a cigar from his humidor. I accepted it and lit it with the flame of the candle he handed me.

‘Macanudo?’

‘I see you’re educating your palate. A man must have vices, expensive ones if possible, otherwise when he reaches old age he will have nothing to be redeemed of. In fact, I’m going to have one with you. What the hell!’

A cloud of exquisite cigar smoke covered us like high tide.

‘I was in Paris a few months ago and took the opportunity to make some enquiries on the subject you talked about with our friend Sempere some time before,’ Barceló explained.

‘Éditions de la Lumière.’

‘Exactly. I wish I’d been able to scratch a little deeper, but unfortunately, after the publishing house closed down, nobody, it seems, bought its backlist, so it was difficult to gather much information.’

‘You say it closed? When?’

‘In 1914, if I’m not mistaken.’

‘There must be some mistake.’

‘Not if we’re talking about the same Éditions de la Lumière, on Boulevard Saint-Germain.’

‘That’s the one.’

‘In fact, I made a note of everything so I wouldn’t forget it when I saw you.’

Barceló looked in the drawer of his desk and pulled out a small notebook.

‘Here it is: “Éditions de la Lumière, publishing house specialising in religious texts with offices in Rome, Paris, London and Berlin. Founder and publisher, Andreas Corelli. Date of the opening of the first office in Paris, 1881—”’

‘Impossible,’ I muttered.

Barceló shrugged his shoulders.

‘Of course, I could have got it wrong, but—’

‘Did you get a chance to visit the offices?’

‘As a matter of fact, I did try, because my hotel was opposite the Panthéon, very close by, and the former offices of the publishing house were on the southern pavement of the boulevard, between Rue Saint-Jacques and Boulevard Saint-Michel.’

‘And?’

‘The building was empty, bricked up, and it looked as if there’d been a fire or something similar. The only thing that had remained intact was the door knocker, an exquisite object in the shape of an angel. Bronze, I think. I would have taken it, had there not been a
gendarme
watching me disapprovingly. I didn’t have the courage to provoke a diplomatic incident - heaven forbid France should decide to invade us again!’

‘With the way things are, they might be doing us a favour.’

‘Now that you mention it . . . But going back to the subject: when I saw what a state the place was in, I went to the café next door to make some enquiries and they told me the building had been like that for twenty years.’

‘Were you able to discover anything about the publisher?’

‘Corelli? From what I gathered, the publishing house closed when he decided to retire, although he can’t even have been fifty years old. I think he moved to a villa in the south of France, in the Luberon, and died shortly afterwards. They say a snake bit him. A viper. That’s what you get for retiring to Provence.’

‘Are you sure he died? ‘

‘Père Coligny, an old competitor of Corelli, showed me his death notice - he had it framed and treasures it like a trophy. He said he looks at it every day to remind himself that the damned bastard is dead and buried. His exact words, although in French they sounded much prettier and more musical.’

‘Did Coligny mention whether the publisher had any children?’

‘I got the impression that Corelli was not his favourite topic, because as soon as he could Coligny slipped away from me. It seems there was some scandal - Corelli stole one of his authors from him, someone called Lambert.’

‘What happened?’

‘The funniest thing about all this is that Coligny had never actually set eyes on Corelli. His only contact with him was by correspondence. The root of the problem, I think, was that Monsieur Lambert signed an agreement to write a book for Éditions de la Lumière behind Coligny’s back, when Coligny had sole rights to his work. Lambert was a terminal opium addict and had accumulated enough debts to pave Rue de Rivoli from end to end. Coligny suspected that Corelli had offered Lambert an astronomical sum and that the poor man, who was dying, had accepted it because he wanted to leave his children well provided for.’

‘What sort of book was it?’

‘Something with a religious content. Coligny mentioned the title, some fancy Latin expression that was fashionable at the time, but I can’t remember it now. As you know, the titles of missals all run in a similar vein.
Pax Gloria Mundi
or something like that.’

‘And what happened to the book and Lambert?’

‘That’s where matters become complicated. It seems that poor Lambert, in a fit of madness, wanted to burn his manuscript, so he set fire to it, and to himself, in the offices of the publishing house. A lot of people thought the opium had frazzled his brains, but Coligny suspected that it was Corelli who had pushed him towards suicide.’

‘Why would he want to do that?’

‘Who knows? Perhaps he didn’t want to pay him the sum he had promised? Perhaps it was all just Coligny’s fantasies - I’d say he was a great fan of Beaujolais twelve months a year. He told me that Corelli had tried to kill him in order to release Lambert from his contract and that Corelli only left him in peace when he decided to terminate the agreement with the author and let him go.’

‘Didn’t you say he’d never seen him?’

‘Exactly. I think Coligny must have been raving. When I visited him in his apartment I saw more crucifixes, madonnas and figures of saints than you’d find in a shop selling Christmas mangers. I got the impression that he wasn’t all that well in the head. When I left he told me to stay away from Corelli.’

‘But hadn’t he told you Corelli was dead?’

‘
Ecco qua.
’

I fell silent. Barceló looked at me with curiosity.

‘I have the feeling that my discoveries aren’t a huge surprise to you.’

I gave him a carefree smile, trying to make light of it all.

‘On the contrary. Thank you for taking the time to investigate.’

‘Not at all. Going to Paris in search of gossip is a pleasure in itself; you know me.’

Barceló tore the page with the information out of his notebook and handed it to me.

‘In case it’s of any use to you. I’ve noted down everything I was able to discover.’

I stood up and we shook hands. He came with me to the door, where Dalmau had the parcel ready for me.

‘How about a print of the Baby Jesus - one of those where he opens and closes his eyes depending how you look at it? Or one of the Virgin Mary surrounded by lambs: when you move it, they turn into cherubs with rosy cheeks. A wonder of stereoscopic technology.’

‘The revealed word is enough for the time being.’

‘Amen.’

I was grateful to the bookseller for his attempts to cheer me up, but as I walked away from the shop a cold anxiety began to invade me and I had the feeling that the streets and my destiny were set on nothing but quicksand.