“IT WAS AT the end of March, I think. David’s health had improved over the last few days. He’d found an old wooden boat in a shed at the bottom of the cliff, and almost every morning, early, he would row out to sea in it. I was already seven months pregnant and spent my time reading. The house had a library, and there were copies of almost all the works by David Martin’s favourite author, someone I’d never heard of, called Julián Carax. In the afternoon we’d light the fire in the sitting room, and I would read aloud to him. We read them all. We spent those two last weeks reading the latest novel by Julián Carax, The Shadow of the Wind.”
“I don’t know it.”
“Almost nobody knows it. They think they do, but they don’t really. One night we finished reading the book in the early hours. I went to bed, and two hours later I felt the first contractions.”
“You had two months to go . . .”
“I started to feel a terrible pain, as if I’d been stabbed in the womb. I panicked. I shouted David’s name. When he pulled back the sheet to pick me up in his arms and take me to the doctor, they were soaked in blood . . .”
“I’m sorry.”
“Everyone is sorry.”
“No.”
“And the baby?”
“It was a girl. She was stillborn.”
“I’m very sorry, Ariadna. Perhaps we’d better stop for a while and call the doctor to give you something.”
“No. I don’t want to stop now.”
“All right. What happened next?”
“David . . .”
“Relax, take your time.”
“David took the corpse in his arms and started to whine like a wounded animal. The little girl’s skin was bluish. She looked like a broken doll. I wanted to get up and hug them both, but I was very weak. At dawn, when it was beginning to get light, David took the baby, looked at me for the last time, and asked to be forgiven. Then he left the house. I dragged myself over to the window. I saw him go down the steps in the rocks to the jetty. The wooden boat was moored at the very end. He got into it with the girl’s body wrapped in a few rags and started to row out to sea, looking towards me the whole time. I raised a hand, hoping he’d see me, hoping he’d come back. He went on rowing until he stopped about a hundred metres from the coast. The sun was peering over the sea by now, making it look like a lake of fire. I saw David’s figure stand up and take something from the bottom of the boat. He proceeded to hit the keel, again and again. It only took a couple of minutes to sink. David stayed there, motionless, with the baby in his arms, staring at me until the sea swallowed them both forever.”
“What did you do then?”
“I’d lost a lot of blood and was very weak. I spent a couple of days with a fever, thinking that everything had been a nightmare and that any moment now David would come back in through the door. After that, when I was able to get up and walk, I started going down to the beach every day. To wait.”
“To wait?”
“For them to return. You must think I was as mad as David.”
“No. I don’t think that at all.”
“The peasants who came every day with their cart had seen me there. They came over to ask me whether I was all right and gave me something to eat. They said I didn’t look well and offered to take me to the hospital in San Feliu. It must have been them who alerted the Civil Guard. One of their patrols found me asleep on the beach and took me to the hospital. I was suffering from hypothermia, pneumonia, and an internal hemorrhage that would have killed me within twelve hours if I hadn’t been taken to the hospital. I didn’t tell them who I was, but it didn’t take them long to find out. There were search warrants with my picture in all the police stations and Civil Guard barracks. I was admitted to a hospital and spent two weeks there.”
“Didn’t your parents come to see you?”
“They weren’t my parents.”
“I mean the Ubachs.”
“No. When at last I was discharged, two policemen and an ambulance picked me up and took me back to the Ubachs’ mansion in Madrid.”
“What did the Ubachs say when they saw you?”
“The señora, for that’s how she liked me to call her, spat in my face and called me a bitch and an ungrateful whore. Ubach summoned me to his office. The whole time I was there, he didn’t even bother to look up from his desk. He explained that they were going to send me to a boarding school near El Escorial, and that I’d be able to come home for a few days at Christmas, so long as I behaved myself. The next day they took me there.”
“How long were you at the boarding school?”
“Three weeks.”
“Why for such a short time?”
“The head of the school discovered that I’d told my roommate, Ana Maria, what had happened.”
“What did you tell her?”
“Everything.”
“Including the stealing of children?”
“Everything.”
“And she believed you?”
“Yes. Something like that had also happened to her. Almost all the girls in the boarding school had a similar story.”
“A few days later they found her hanging in the boarding-school attic. She was sixteen.”
“Suicide?”
“What do you think?”
“And you? What did they do to you?”
“They took me back to the Ubachs’ house.”
“And . . . ?”
“Ubach gave me a beating and locked me in my room. He told me that if I ever told lies about him again, they’d stick me in a mental hospital for the rest of my life.”
“And what did you say?”
“Nothing. That very night, while they slept, I sneaked out of my room through the window and locked the door of the Ubachs’ bedroom, on the third floor. Then I went down to the kitchen and opened the gas taps. They kept drums of kerosene for the generator in the basement. I walked all around the first floor, sprinkling kerosene on the floor and the walls. Then I set fire to the curtains and went out into the garden.”
“You didn’t run away?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I wanted to see them burn.”
“I understand.”
“I don’t think you can understand. But I’ve told you the whole truth. Now you tell me something.”
“Of course.”
“Where’s my sister?”