A VELVET SUN was painting the streets with innocence. Alicia strolled through the crowds milling around the centre of town as she mulled over a scene she had read in the last pages of Ariadna and the Scarlet Prince. In this scene, Ariadna met with a street vendor who sold masks and dead flowers by the entrance to the city of the dead, the great southern necropolis. She had arrived there in a ghostly tram with no driver or passengers. The tram had a notice on the front that read:
DESTINY
The vendor was blind, but he could hear Ariadna approaching and asked her whether she wanted to buy a mask. The masks he sold in his cart, he explained, were made with the remains of doomed souls who inhabited the cemetery. By wearing them, one could outwit the fates and perhaps survive one more day. Ariadna admitted that she didn’t know what her destiny was, and that she thought she had lost it when she fell into the haunted Barcelona ruled by the Scarlet Prince. The vendor smiled and replied with these words:
Most of us mortals never get to know our real destiny; we’re just trampled by it. By the time we raise our heads and see it moving off down the road, it’s already too late, and we have to walk the rest of the way along the straight and narrow ditch that dreamers call maturity. Hope is no more than the belief that that moment hasn’t yet come, that we might still manage to see our real destiny when it draws near and jump on board before the chance of being ourselves disappears forever, condemning us to live in emptiness, missing what should have been and never was.
Alicia remembered those words as if she had them engraved on her skin. Nothing is more surprising or frightening than what one already knows. That midday, as she placed her hand on the doorknob of the old Sempere & Sons bookshop, she felt the presence of that life still to be lived and wondered whether it wasn’t already too late.
She was greeted by the tinkle of the entrance bell, the perfume emanating from thousands of pages waiting to be read, and a faint luminosity that wove the scene into the texture of dreams. It was all just as she remembered it, from the endless pale wooden shelves to the last speck of dust caught in the beams of light filtering through the shop window. Everything except herself.
She stepped into that room as if she were going back into a forgotten memory. For a moment she told herself that this place could have been her destiny if the war hadn’t snatched from her everything she possessed, if it hadn’t maimed her and abandoned her on the streets of an accursed land. If it hadn’t turned her into one more puppet in a show from which she knew she could never escape. She realized that the vision she could divine inside the four walls of the Sempere & Sons bookshop was the life that had been stolen from her.
The gaze of a small boy pulled her out of her daydreaming. He couldn’t have been more than two or three years old and was installed inside a white wooden playpen next to the counter. Crowned by a mass of fine fair hair that shone like gold, he had risen to his feet, holding on to the edge of the playpen and looking straight at Alicia, studying her as if she were some exotic specimen. Alicia melted into one of those honest smiles she could summon up on cue. The little boy seemed to be sizing up her smile while he played with a rubber crocodile. Then, in a notable feat of air acrobatics, he proceeded to fire off the toy in a parabolic flight that left it at her feet. Alicia knelt down to pick up the crocodile, and then she heard the voice.
“For heaven’s sake, Julián! What are you up to . . . ”
Alicia heard footsteps approaching around the counter, and when she stood up she saw her. Beatriz. Close up, she seemed as beautiful as she was described by fools and busybodies who, as expected, felt inclined to say little else about her. She was graced with the unassuming and youthful femininity of a woman who has experienced motherhood before reaching twenty, but the look in her eyes was that of a woman twice her age, penetrating and inquisitive. In that brief instant in which their hands touched, when Alicia handed her little Julián’s toy and their eyes met, they both felt they were confronting a looking glass through time.
Alicia gazed at the child and told herself that, in another life, she could well have been that young woman with her serene angelic appearance, a woman who surely must give rise to longings and sighs in the neighborhood, the very image of the perfect wife in fashion ads. Beatriz, virtue incarnate, also gazed at the stranger, a dark reflection of her own self, a Bea she could never or would never dare be.
“I’m sorry about the boy,” said Bea. “He’s quite determined that everyone should like crocodiles as much as he does. You’d think he could like puppies or teddy bears like other children, but no . . .”
“A sign of good taste,” said Alicia. “All those other children are silly, aren’t they?”
The child nodded a few times, as if at last he’d found a sane person in the universe. Bea frowned. The way that woman looked reminded her of the stylized, exquisitely evil witches in the storybooks Julián loved so much. Her son must have thought likewise, because he had stretched his arms out as if he wanted her to pick him up.
“It looks like you’ve made a friend,” said Bea. “And don’t imagine Julián will go off with just anyone . . .”
Alicia looked at the boy. Having never held a baby or child, she had no idea how to do it.
Bea must have sensed her bewilderment, because she took Julián in her arms. “Don’t you have children?”
The visitor shook her head.
She probably eats them, thought Bea, lapsing into spite. Julián was still looking at Alicia, entranced.
“Julián, is that his name?”
“Yes.”
Alicia stepped closer to the child and leaned forward so that their eyes were level. Julián smiled, delighted.
*
Surprised at her son’s reaction, Bea let him stretch out his hand to the woman’s face. Julián touched her cheek and her lips. When he stroked her, Bea thought the customer’s eyes were filling with tears, or perhaps it was just the reflection of the midday sun. The woman moved away swiftly and turned around.
She was wearing gorgeous clothes, and as far as Bea could see, very expensive. The sort of clothes she would sometimes stop to look at in the most exclusive shop windows in Barcelona, only to walk away daydreaming about them. She was pencil-slim, and her expression was vaguely theatrical. And she wore a glossy red lipstick that Bea would never have dared show off in public. Only occasionally had she painted her lips that colour for Daniel in private, when he got her a bit tipsy with muscatel and asked her to do what he called “a fashion parade”.
“I love your shoes,” said Bea.
The woman turned around again and smiled, her teeth flashing. Julián was trying to clap, a clear indication that he liked everything about her, from the shoes whose price could not even be asked to the velvety eyes that seemed to hypnotize like the eyes of a snake.
“Were you looking for anything in particular?”
“Well, I’m not sure. I had to leave almost all my books behind when I moved, and now that I’ve returned to Barcelona, I feel as if I’ve been shipwrecked.”
“Are you local?”
“Yes, but I’ve been away a few years.”
“In Paris?”
“Paris? No.”
“I said that because of your clothes. And your look. You have a Parisian look.”
Alicia swapped glances with little Julián. Still besotted with her, he nodded as if that business of her Parisian origins had been his idea, not his mother’s.
“Do you know Paris?” asked Alicia.
“No. Well, only from books. But next year we’ll go and celebrate our anniversary there.”
“That’s what I call a good husband.”
“Oh, he doesn’t know yet.” Bea laughed nervously. Something in that woman’s gaze made her speak too much.
Alicia gave her a conspiratorial wink. “Even better. Some things are far too important to be left in men’s hands.”
“Is this your first time in the bookshop?” asked Bea, wanting to change the subject.
“No. In fact, when I was a child, I used to come here with my parents. This is where my father bought me my first book . . . Although that was many years ago. Before the war. But I have very good memories, and I told myself it was the best place to begin rebuilding my lost library.”
Bea felt butterflies in her stomach at the thought of imminent business. For a long time now sales had been poor, and those words sounded like celestial music.
“Well, we’re here to assist you in anything you need. What we don’t have in the shop we can find for you in a matter of days or even hours.”
“That’s good to know. Are you the owner?”
“I’m Bea. This is my father-in-law’s bookshop, but we all work here, all the family . . .”
“Your husband also works with you? How lucky.”
“I’m not sure if I agree with you,” joked Bea. “Are you married?”
“No.”
Bea swallowed hard. Once more she’d said too much. That was the second personal question she had asked that promising customer for no reason.
Alicia read her thoughts and smiled. “Don’t worry, Bea. My name is Alicia.”
She held out her hand, and Bea shook it. Julián, who didn’t miss a thing, also lifted his hand, trying his luck. Alicia shook it too.
Bea laughed. “You have such a knack with them, you should have kids yourself.”
As soon as she’d said those words she bit her tongue. Bea, please shut up.
The woman called Alicia didn’t seem to have heard her. She was gazing absently at the full bookshelves, lifting her hand and almost caressing the books without touching them. Bea took advantage of the fact that she had her back turned to have another good look at her.
“You might like to know that we offer special prices for collections . . .”
“May I stay and live here?” asked Alicia.
Bea laughed again, this time without much conviction. She looked at her son, who would clearly have handed over the shop keys to the stranger.
“Steinbeck . . .” she heard her murmur.
“We have an entire new series that includes a number of his novels. It has just arrived . . .”
Alicia picked up one of the volumes, opened it, and read a few lines at random. “It’s like reading a musical score.”
Bea thought she was talking to herself, lost among the books, and had forgotten about her and the child. She left her alone and let her wander through the bookshop undisturbed. Alicia would pick up a book here and there and leave it on the counter. A quarter of an hour later she had piled up a respectable tower of books.
“We also do deliveries . . .”
“Don’t worry, Bea. I’ll send someone around to collect them this afternoon. But I’ll take this one with me. This card has convinced me. It says: ‘Recommended by Fermín: The Grapes of Wrath, by the roguish Johnny Steinbeck, is a symphony of words suitable for alleviating cases of stubborn stupidity and favouring the prophylaxis of the meninx in cases of cerebral constipation provoked by an excess of adherence to the norms of official idiocy.’”
Bea rolled her eyes and pulled the card off the cover. “Forgive me, this business of recommendation cards is one of Fermín’s latest ideas. I try to find them all and pull them off before the customers discover them, but he keeps on hiding them all over the place . . .”
Alicia laughed. Her laughter was cold, like crystal. “Is this Fermín one of your employees?”
Bea nodded. “Something like that. He describes himself as literary adviser and bibliographic detective for Sempere & Sons.”
“He sounds like quite a character.”
“You have no idea. Isn’t it true, Julián, that Uncle Fermín is quite something?”
The child clapped.
“One is as bad as the other,” Bea explained. “I don’t know who is the more childish of the two . . .”
Bea started to look at the prices of the different volumes, noting them down in the sales ledger. Alicia observed her: she showed a confidence that left no doubt as to who was in charge of the accounts in that household.
“With our discount, that will come to . . .”
“No discounts, please. Spending money on books is a pleasure that I don’t want you to lessen.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive.”
Alicia paid for the purchase, which Bea started to wrap up for its collection that afternoon.
“You’re taking quite a few treasures,” said Bea.
“I hope they’ll be the first of a long list.”
“Well, here we are, at your service.”
Alicia held out her hand. Bea shook it.
“It’s been a pleasure. I’ll be back soon.”
Bea nodded contentedly, though she thought that Alicia’s remark sounded vaguely threatening.
“Any time. We’ll be here for anything you may need . . .”
Alicia blew a kiss to Julián, who looked as if he were in a trance. They both watched her put on her gloves with catlike movements and make her way to the door, drumming out a rhythm with those high heels. Just as Alicia was leaving, Daniel arrived. Bea watched her husband, open-mouthed, holding the door for Alicia and melting into a smile that deserved at least a slap in the face. Bea rolled her eyes and sighed. Julián, next to her, made the noises he usually made when he was delighted with something, whether it was one of Uncle Fermín’s stories or a hot bath.
“You’re all the same,” Bea murmured.
Daniel stepped into the bookshop, to be met by Bea’s icy look.
“That woman, who was she?” he asked.