THAT NIGHT, LIKE so many others, Fermín had gone out in the small hours to stroll through the deserted streets of Barcelona, which were sown with frost. Remigio, the neighbourhood nightwatchman, knew him, and when he saw him walk by always enquired about his insomnia. He’d learned that word from a phone-in radio programme for lonely women that he listened to avidly because he identified with almost all the sorrows expressed in it, including one referred to as menopause, which intrigued him no end and which he thought could be cured by vigorously scraping one’s privates with a pumice stone.

“Why call it insomnia, when what they mean is conscience?”

“You’re a philosopher, Fermín. If I had a woman like yours waiting for me, all nice and warm between the sheets, there’s no chance I’d be the only sleepless guy in town. And wrap yourself up. The winter might have come late, but it’s come with a vengeance.”

An hour of wrestling with the biting breeze that was sweeping the streets with sleet convinced Fermín that he should make his way to the bookshop. He had some work to catch up on, and he’d learned to enjoy those moments alone in the shop before the sun came out or Daniel came down to open up. He headed along the corridor of blue light stretching along Calle Santa Ana and glimpsed a distant pale glow tinting the glass of the shop window. Fermín slowed down as he drew closer, listening to the echo of his footsteps, and stopped a few metres away, sheltering from the wind in a doorway. Too early even for Daniel, he thought. Maybe what he’d said about conscience was going to turn out to be contagious.

He was debating between going back home to wake Bernarda up with a strenuous demonstration of Iberian virility, or going into the bookshop to interrupt Daniel doing whatever he was doing (above all to make sure this didn’t include firearms or any sharp objects), when he caught sight of his friend walking through the shop entrance and stepping into the street. Fermín sank back into the doorway until he felt the door knocker sticking into his lower back and discovered that Daniel was locking the door and setting off towards Puerta del Ángel. He was in his shirtsleeves and was carrying something under his arm, a book or a notebook. Fermín sighed. That didn’t look good. Bernarda would have to wait to find out a thing or two.

For almost half an hour Fermín followed Daniel through the knot of streets leading down to the port. He didn’t need to move too skilfully or surreptitiously; Daniel seemed so lost in thought, he wouldn’t have noticed a group of tap-dancing ballerinas if they’d been following him. Trembling with cold and cursing himself for having lined his coat with pages from a sports paper – porous and unreliable for such occasions – instead of using the extra-thick pages from the Sunday edition of La Vanguardia, Fermín was tempted to call out to his friend. But he thought better of it. Daniel was advancing as if in a trance, unaware of the sleety mist clinging to his body.

Finally Paseo de Colon opened up before them and, beyond it, the tableau of sheds, masts, and sea mist guarding the docks of the port. Daniel crossed the avenue and walked around a couple of stationary trams that waited for dawn to break. He entered the narrow alleyways between the cavernous sheds, colossal warehouses storing mountains of cargo. At the breakwater of the port, a group of fishermen getting their nets and tackle ready to go out to sea had lit a fire in an empty diesel drum to keep warm. As Daniel approached, they moved to one side, seeing something in his expression that did not encourage conversation. Fermín hurried on. As he drew closer, he could see Daniel throwing the notebook he’d been carrying under his arm into the flames.

Fermín went up to his friend and smiled at him weakly from the other side of the diesel drum. Daniel’s eyes shone in the light of the fire.

“If what you’re trying to do is catch pneumonia,” ventured Fermín, “may I remind you that the North Pole is exactly in the opposite direction.”

Daniel ignored his words and stood there, staring at the blaze as it devoured the pages, which shrivelled among the flames as if an invisible hand were turning them one by one.

“Bea must be worried, Daniel. Why don’t we go back?”

Daniel looked up and gazed blankly at Fermín, as if he’d never seen him before.

“Daniel?”

“Where is it?” asked Daniel, in a cold voice that lacked all inflection.

“Excuse me?”

“The gun. What have you done with it, Fermín?”

“I gave it to the Sisters of Charity.”

A frozen smile surfaced on Daniel’s lips. Fermín, who had never felt so close to losing Daniel forever, stepped closer and put his arm around him. “Let’s go home, Daniel. Please.”

At last Daniel nodded, and little by little, in complete silence, they made their way back.

*

Dawn was breaking when Bea heard the door of the apartment open and Daniel’s footsteps in the hall. She’d been sitting for hours in the dining-room armchair, a blanket over her shoulders. Daniel’s figure appeared in the corridor. If he saw her, he did nothing to show it. He walked past her and made his way to Julián’s bedroom, which was at the back, overlooking the small square by the church of Santa Ana. Bea stood up and followed him. She found Daniel in the bedroom doorway, gazing at the sleeping child.

Bea put her hand on his shoulder. “Where were you?” she whispered.

Daniel turned around and looked into her eyes.

“When is all this going to end, Daniel?” she murmured.

“Soon,” he said. “Soon.”