LOST IN A square hidden beneath the shadow of the cathedral stands a stone portico. An inscription on its arch reads:
Alicia had occasionally heard about the place, but like most of her fellow citizens, she knew almost nothing about that institution housed behind the walls of an old palace, a relic of medieval Barcelona. She knew, or guessed, that the academy was made up of an illustrious company of wise men, scribes, and serious addicts to literature and the arts, sworn to protect learning and the written word, who had been gathering there since the end of the eighteenth century, determined to ignore the outside world’s enthusiastic efforts to oppose and disdain such eccentricities.
A perfume of stones and the mandatory aura of mystery followed her as she stepped through the doorway into the inner patio, where a wide stairway led up to the reception room. There she was intercepted by an individual with a leathery face who looked as if he’d been there since the dawn of the last century. He regarded her with suspicion and asked her whether she was Señorita Gris.
“That’s me.”
“I thought so. Señor Vilajuana is in the library,” he said, pointing inside. “We ask visitors to be silent.”
“Don’t worry, I took my vows this very morning.”
The guard dog showed no intention of smiling at her joke. She decided to thank him and set off in search of the library, as if she knew where to find it. That was always the most efficient way of slipping into any place with restricted access: behave as if you know where you’re going and require no clearance or directions. The strategy of gaining entry is not unlike seduction: if you ask for permission, you’ve lost before you’ve begun.
Alicia wandered at ease, nosing around halls riddled with statues and strolling down palatial corridors until she stumbled across a kindly bookworm who identified himself as Polonio and offered to guide her to the library.
“I’ve never seen you around here,” he remarked. His experience with the feminine gender did not seem to have ventured beyond Petrarch’s verses.
“It’s your lucky day.”
She found Sergio Vilajuana in the company of the muses and the almost fifty thousand volumes that made up the academy’s library. The journalist had settled down at one of the tables and was facing a small citadel of sheets of paper covered in marginal notes and crossed-out words. Vilajuana had the pensive poise of a British scholar relocated to the fairer climes of the Mediterranean. He wore a grey wool suit, a tie with a pattern of golden nibs, and a saffron-coloured scarf over his shoulders. Nibbling the top of a fountain pen, he murmured under his breath as he tried to trap a sentence that refused to land on the page.
Alicia let the echo of her footsteps announce her presence as she walked into the room. Vilajuana emerged from his daydream and looked up. Replacing the top of the pen, he rose courteously. “Señorita Gris, I presume.”
“Call me Alicia, please.” Alicia held out her hand, which Vilajuana shook with a polite but cautious smile. His small, keen eyes observed her as he asked her to sit down, wavering between suspicion and curiosity.
Alicia pointed to the pages dotted around the table, some still damp with ink. “Have I interrupted you?”
“I’d say you’ve rescued me.”
“Bibliographic research?”
“My inaugural speech for being received into this institution.”
“Congratulations.”
“Thank you. I wouldn’t like to sound brusque, Señorita Gris, Alicia, but I’ve been waiting to see you for a few days, and I think we can dispense with the small talk.”
“I gather, then, that Don Gustavo Barceló has spoken to you about me?”
“In some detail, if I may be so bold. Let’s say you made a deep impression on him.”
“It’s one of my specialties.”
“I can see that. In fact, some of your old colleagues at police headquarters also send you their regards. Don’t be surprised. We journalists are like that too. We ask questions. It’s a bad habit we acquire over the years.” Abandoning all attempts at diplomacy, he looked her straight in the eye. “Who are you?”
Alicia considered lying, just a little, or even lying her head off, but something in that look told her it would be a grave tactical mistake. “Someone who wants to find out the truth about Víctor Mataix.”
“A club that recently seems to be gaining more and more followers. May I ask why?”
“I’m afraid I can’t answer your question.”
“Without lying, you mean.”
Alicia nodded. “Something I won’t do, out of respect.”
Vilajuana’s smile returned, this time overflowing with irony. “And you think that flattering me will prove more profitable than lying?”
She fluttered her eyelashes and adopted her sweetest expression. “You can’t reproach me for trying.”
“I see Barceló wasn’t exaggerating. If you can’t tell me the truth, at least tell me why you can’t.”
“Because if I did, I would put you in danger.”
“In other words, you’re protecting me.”
“In a way, yes.”
“So I should be grateful and help you. Is that the idea?”
“I’m glad to see you’re beginning to see things my way.”
“I’m afraid I’m going to need some more motivation. And not just cosmetic. The flesh is weak, but after one reaches middle age, common sense tends to prevail again.”
“So they say. How about an alliance of mutual convenience? Barceló told me you’re working on a book on Mataix and the lost generation of those years.”
“The word generation might be rather exaggerated, and lost is poetic license, for want of a better term.”
“I’m speaking about Mataix, David Martín, and others . . .”
Vilajuana raised his eyebrows. “What do you know about David Martín?”
“Things that I’m sure would interest you.”
“As, for example?”
“As, for example, the details of the indictments against Martín, Mataix, and other prisoners who supposedly disappeared in the prison of Montjuïc Castle between 1940 and 1945.”
Vilajuana’s gaze remained fixed on her. His eyes were shining. “Have you spoken to Brians, the lawyer?”
Alicia just nodded.
“I know for a fact that he keeps his mouth shut.”
“There are other ways of finding out the truth,” Alicia insinuated.
“At police headquarters they say that is another of your skills.”
“Sour grapes,” replied Alicia.
“It’s our national pastime,” Vilajuana agreed. Despite himself, he seemed to be enjoying the sparring.
“Even so, I don’t think calling the police station and asking about me is a very good idea, especially now. I say this for your own good.”
“I’m not that simple, young lady. I didn’t make the call, and my name hasn’t been mentioned. As you can see, I also do my best to protect myself.”
“I’m glad to hear it. These days you can never be too cautious.”
“What everyone seems to agree upon is that you’re not to be trusted.”
“In some places and at certain moments, that’s the best compliment one can get.”
“I won’t deny that. Tell me, Alicia, won’t all this, by chance, have something to do with our ineffable minister Don Mauricio Valls and his neatly forgotten past as a gaoler?”
“What makes you say that?”
“The face you made when I mentioned him.”
Alicia hesitated for a moment. Vilajuana nodded to himself, as if she’d confirmed his own suspicions.
“And if that were the case?” asked Alicia.
“Let’s say it would contribute towards getting me slightly interested. What sort of exchange did you have in mind?”
“Strictly literary. You tell me what you know about Mataix, and I promise you access to all the information I have at my disposal once I’ve solved the matter I’m dealing with now.”
“And until then?”
“My eternal gratitude and the satisfaction of knowing you’ve done the right thing by helping a poor damsel in distress.”
“I see. I must admit that at least you’re more convincing than your – I’m presuming – colleague.”
“Excuse me?”
“I’m referring to the one who came to visit me a couple of weeks ago, and whom, by the way, I haven’t seen again,” said the journalist. “Don’t you people exchange information during break? Or are we talking about a competitor?”
“Do you remember his name? Lomana?”
“It could be. I’ve forgotten. Ageing, as I said.”
“What did he look like?”
“Far less tempting than you.”
“Did he have a scar on his face?”
Vilajuana nodded, and his eyes sharpened. “Did you give it to him, perhaps?”
“He cut himself shaving. He’s always been the hairy sort. What did you tell Lomana?”
“Nothing he didn’t already know.”
“Did he mention Valls?”
“Not explicitly, but I could tell he was interested in the years Mataix spent in Montjuïc Castle and his friendship with David Martín. You don’t have to be a genius to put two and two together.”
“And you haven’t seen him or spoken to him since?”
Vilajuana shook his head.
“Lomana can be quite persistent,” said Alicia. “How did you get rid of him?”
“I told him what he wanted to hear. Or what I thought he wanted to hear.”
“He seemed very interested in the house where Víctor Mataix and his family lived until his arrest in 1941, on Carretera de las Aguas, on the hillside of Vallvidrera.”
“Why the house?”
“He asked me what the phrase ‘the entrance to the labyrinth’ meant. He wanted to know whether it referred to a particular place.”
“And . . .”
“I told him that in the novels from the Labyrinth series, the ‘entrance’, the place through which Ariadna ‘falls’ into the subterranean world of that other Barcelona, is the house where she lives with her parents, which is none other than the house where the Mataix family lived. I supplied him with the address and directions. It’s not anything he couldn’t have found himself by spending an hour in the land registry. Perhaps he thought he’d find a treasure there, or something better. Am I right?”
“Did Lomana say who he was working for?”
“He showed me a badge. Like they do in films. I’m no expert, but it looked genuine. Do you also have one of those badges?”
Alicia shook her head.
“A pity. A femme fatale working for the regime is something I thought could only happen in a Julián Carax novel.”
“Are you a Carax reader?”
“Of course! The patron saint of all Barcelona’s ill-fated novelists. You two should meet. You look like you just walked out of one of his books.”
Alicia sighed. “This is important, Señor Vilajuana. The lives of various people are at stake.”
“Mention just one. With a name and surnames, if possible. That way I may be able to take all this a bit more seriously.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Of course. For my own security, I suppose.”
She nodded. “Even if you don’t believe me.”
The journalist clasped his hands over his lap and sat back in his chair, pensive. Alicia sensed that she was losing him. It was time to throw out some more bait. “How long is it since you’ve seen Valls make a public appearance?” she let out.
Vilajuana unclasped his hands, his interest stirred again. “Go on.”
“Not so fast. The deal is that you tell me what you know about Mataix and Martín, and I tell you what I can as soon as I can. And it’s a lot. You have my word.”
Vilajuana chuckled but nodded slowly. “Including Valls?”
“Including Valls,” Alicia lied.
“I suppose there’s no point in me asking you to show me the book.”
Alicia donned the sweetest smile ever.
“You’ve also lied to me about that?”
“Only partly. I had the book until two days ago, but I’ve lost it.”
“I’m supposing that wasn’t because you left it behind in a tram.”
She shook her head.
“The deal, if you’ll allow the amendment, is as follows,” said Vilajuana. “You tell me where you found the book, and I’ll tell you what you want to know.”
Alicia was about to say something when the journalist raised a warning forefinger. “One more mention of my personal security, and I’ll have to wish you goodbye and good luck. Taking for granted that what you say to me stays between us . . .”
She thought it over for quite a while. “Do I have your word?”
Vilajuana put his hand on top of the pile of papers he was working on.
“I swear on my inaugural speech to the Real Academia de Buenas Letras de Barcelona.”
Alicia acquiesced. She looked around her, making sure they were alone in the library. The journalist watched her expectantly.
“I found it a week ago, in Mauricio Valls’s home, hidden in the personal desk of his office.”
“And may I know what you were doing there?”
Alicia leaned forward. “Investigating his disappearance.”
Vilajuana’s eyes lit up like a flare. “Swear to me that you’ll be giving me the exclusive on this story and whatever derives from it.”
“I swear to it on your inaugural speech.”
Vilajuana’s eyes were glued to hers. Alicia didn’t even blink. The journalist gathered a few blank sheets of paper from the table and handed them to her, together with his fountain pen.
“Here,” he said. “I think you might want to take a few notes . . .”