AS HE’D DONE every Sunday since he became a widower, over twenty years before, Juan Sempere rose early, made himself a strong cup of coffee, and put on his Barcelona gentleman’s suit and hat to go down to the church of Santa Ana. The bookseller had never been a religious man, unless Alexandre Dumas could be considered an ex cathedra addition to the list of saints. He liked to park himself in the last pew and witness the ceremony in silence. He stood up and sat down out of respect at the priest’s indications, but he didn’t take part in the chanting, the prayers or the communion. Since Isabella’s death, he and the heavens, not the greatest communicators at the best of times, had little to say to one another.
The parish priest, who was aware of Juan’s convictions, or his lack of them, always welcomed him, reminding him that this was his home, whatever he believed. “We each live our faith in our own way,” he would say. “But don’t quote me, or they’ll send me off to the missions, hoping I get eaten by an anaconda.” The bookseller always replied that he wasn’t a man of faith, but that in that chapel he felt closer to Isabella, if only because it had been the scene of their marriage and her funeral, separated by just five years, the only happy years he remembered having lived.
That Sunday morning, as usual, Juan Sempere sat in the last pew to hear mass and watch how the early birds of the neighbourhood – a mishmash of devout women and sinners, lonely people, insomniacs, optimists, and those retired from the business of hope – came together to beseech the Lord, in his infinite silence, to remember them and their fleeting existences. He could see the priest’s breath sketching prayers of vapour as he spoke. The congregation listed towards the only gas heater the parish church’s budget allowed, but even that appliance, despite the assistance of Madonnas and saints who interceded from their niches, could not work miracles.
The priest was about to consecrate the Holy Host and drink the wine that, in that bitter cold, the bookseller wouldn’t have said no to, when he glimpsed out of the corner of his eye a figure sliding down the pew and sitting down next to him. Sempere turned to find his son Daniel, whom he hadn’t seen in church since his wedding day. All he needed now was to see Fermín come in holding a missal to decide that in fact his alarm clock had gone on strike, and what he was seeing was just part of a pleasant winter Sunday’s dream.
“Everything all right?” asked Juan.
Daniel nodded with a meek smile and turned to look at the priest, who was starting to distribute communion among the parishioners while the organist, a music teacher who made Sunday appearances at various churches in the area and was a customer at the bookshop, played as best he could.
“Judging by the crimes committed against Johann Sebastian Bach, Maestro Clemente’s fingers must be frozen stiff this morning,” he added.
Daniel nodded again. Sempere gazed at his son, who for some days now had seemed lost in thought. Daniel carried inside him a world of absences and silence that Sempere had never been able to enter. He often recalled that dawn, fifteen years ago, when his son had woken up screaming because he could no longer remember his mother’s face. That morning the bookseller had taken him for the first time to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, perhaps hoping that the place and what it signified might fill the emptiness that losing Isabella had left in their lives. He had watched him grow and become a man, get married, and bring a child into the world, and yet he still woke up every morning fearing for him and wishing Isabella were by his side, to tell him the things he would never be able to say. A parent never sees his children grow old. To a father’s eyes, they always seem like those kids who once looked up at him with veneration, convinced that he had the answers to all the mysteries of the universe.
That morning, however, in the half-light of a chapel far from God and from the world, the bookseller looked at his son and for the first time thought that time had begun to pass for him too, that he would never again see the boy who lived only to remember the face of a mother who would never return. Sempere tried to find words with which to tell Daniel that he understood, that he was not alone, but the darkness hanging over his son like a poisoned shadow scared him. Daniel turned towards his father, and Sempere read anger and hatred in his eyes such as he’d never seen, not even in the eyes of old men whose lives had already been condemned to misery.
“Daniel . . .” he whispered.
His son put his arms around him, hushing him and holding him tight, as if he feared something might snatch him away. The bookseller couldn’t see his face, but he knew his son was weeping silently. And for the first time since Isabella had left them, he prayed for him.