The Angel's Game (30 page)

“The main pillar of organized religion, with few exceptions, is the subjugation, repression, even the annulment of women in the group. Woman must accept the role of an ethereal, passive, and maternal presence, never of authority or independence, or she will have to suffer the consequences. She might have a place of honor in the symbolism, but not in the hierarchy. Religion and war are male pursuits. And anyhow, woman sometimes ends up becoming the accomplice in her own subjugation.”

“And the aged?”

“Old age is the lubricant of belief. When death knocks at the door, skepticism flies out the window. A serious cardiovascular fright and a person will even believe in Little Red Riding Hood.”

Corelli laughed.

“Careful, Martín, I think you’re becoming more cynical than I am.”

I looked at him as if I were an obedient pupil eager for the approval
of a demanding teacher. Corelli patted me on the knee, nodding with satisfaction.

“I like it. I like the flair of it. I want you to go on turning things round and finding a shape. I’m going to give you more time. We’ll meet in two or three weeks. I’ll let you know a few days beforehand.”

“Do you have to leave the city?”

“Business matters concerning the publishing house. I’m afraid I have a few days of travel ahead of me, but I’m going away contented. You’ve done a good job. I knew I’d found my ideal candidate.”

The boss stood up and put out his hand. I dried the sweat from my palm on my trouser leg and we shook hands.

“You’ll be missed,” I began.

“Don’t exaggerate, Martín, you were doing very well.”

I watched him leave and remained where I was a good while, wondering whether the boss had risen to the bait and swallowed the tall stories I’d fed him. I was sure that I’d told him exactly what he wanted to hear. I hoped so, and I also hoped that the string of nonsense would keep him satisfied for the time being, convinced that his servant, the poor failed novelist, had become a convert. I told myself that anything that bought me time in which to discover what I had got myself into was worth a try. When I stood up and left the Shade House, my hands were still shaking.

Y
ears of experience writing thrillers provide one with a set of principles on which to base an investigation. One of them is that all moderately solid plots, including those seemingly about affairs of passion, bear the unmistakable whiff of money and property. When I left the Shade House I walked to the Land Registry in Calle Consejo de Ciento and asked whether I could consult the records in which the sales and ownership of my house were listed. Books in the Land Registry archive contain almost as much information on the realities of life as the complete works of the most respected philosophers—if not more.

I began by looking up the section containing the details of my lease of 30 Calle Flassaders. There I found the necessary data with which to trace the history of the property before the Banco Hispano Colonial took ownership in 1911, as part of the appropriation of the Marlasca family assets—apparently the family had inherited the building upon the death of the owner. A lawyer named S. Valera was mentioned as having represented the family. Another leap into the past allowed me to find information relating to the purchase of the building by Don Diego Marlasca Pongiluppi in 1902 from a certain Bernabé Massot y Caballé. I made a note of all this on a slip of paper, from the name of the lawyer and all those taking part in the transactions to the relevant dates.

One of the clerks announced in a loud voice that there were fifteen
minutes to closing time so I got ready to leave, but before that I hurriedly tried to consult the records for Andreas Corelli’s house next to Güell Park. After fifteen minutes of searching in vain, I looked up from the register and met the ashen eyes of the clerk. He was an emaciated character, pomade shining on moustache and hair, who oozed that belligerent apathy of those who turn their job into a platform for obstructing the lives of others.

“I’m sorry. I can’t find a property,” I said.

“That must be because it doesn’t exist or because you don’t know how to search properly. We’ve closed for today.”

I repaid his kindness and efficiency with my best smile.

“I might find it with your expert help,” I suggested.

He gave me a nauseating look and snatched the volume from my hands.

“Come back tomorrow.”

My next stop was the ostentatious building of the Bar Association in Calle Mallorca, only a few streets away. I climbed the wide steps guarded by glass chandeliers and what looked like a statue of Justice but with the bosom and attitude of a Paralelo starlet. When I reached the secretary’s office, a small, mousy-looking man welcomed me and asked how he could help.

“I’m looking for a lawyer.”

“You’ve come to the right place. We don’t know how to get rid of them here. There seem to be more every day. They multiply like rabbits.”

“It’s the modern world. The one I’m looking for is called, or was called, Valera, S. Valera, with a V.”

The little man disappeared into a labyrinth of filing cabinets. I waited, leaning on the counter, my eyes wandering over a décor ponderous with the inexorable weight of the law. Five minutes later the man returned with a folder.

“I’ve found ten Valeras. Two with an S. Sebastián and Soponcio.”

“Soponcio?”

“You’re very young, but years ago that was a name with a certain
cachet, and ideal for the legal profession. Then along came the Charleston and ruined everything.”

“Is Don Soponcio still alive?”

“According to the folder and the date he stopped paying his dues, Soponcio Valera y Menacho was received into the glory of Our Lord in the year 1919. Memento mori. Sebastián is his son.”

“Still practicing?”

“Fully and constantly. I sense you will want the address.”

“If it’s not too much trouble.”

The little man wrote it down on a small piece of paper that he handed to me.

“442 Diagonal. It’s just a stone’s throw away. But it’s two o’clock, and by now most top lawyers will be at lunch with rich widows or manufacturers of fabrics and explosives. I’d wait until four.”

I put the address in my jacket pocket.

“I’ll do that. Thank you for your help.”

“That’s what we’re here for. God bless.”

…

I had a couple of hours to kill before paying a visit to Señor Valera, so I took a tram down Vía Layetana and got off when it reached Calle Condal. The Sempere & Sons bookshop was close by and I knew from experience that—contravening the immutable tradition of local shops—the old bookseller didn’t close at midday. I found him as usual, standing at the counter cataloging books and serving a large group of customers who were wandering around the tables and bookshelves hunting for treasure. He smiled when he saw me and came over to say hello. He looked thinner and paler than the last time I’d seen him. He must have noticed my anxiety because he immediately made light of the matter.

“Some win, others lose. You’re looking fit and well and I’m all skin and bones, as you can see,” he said.

“Are you all right?”

“Fresh as a daisy. It’s the damned angina. Nothing serious. What brings you here, Martín, my friend?”

“I thought I’d take you out to lunch.”

“Thank you, but I can’t abandon ship. My son has gone to Sarriá to appraise a collection and business isn’t so good that we can afford to close the shop when there are customers about.”

“Don’t tell me you’re having financial problems.”

“This is a bookshop, Martín, not an investment firm. The world of letters provides us with just enough to get by, and sometimes not even that.”

“If you need help …”

Sempere held up his hand.

“If you want to help me, buy a book or two.”

“You know that the debt I owe you can never be repaid with money.”

“All the more reason not even to think about it. Don’t worry about us, Martín. The only way they’ll get me out of here is in a pine box. But if you like, you can come share a tasty meal of bread, raisins, and fresh Burgos cheese. With that, and
The Count of Monte Cristo
, anyone can live to a hundred.”

S
empere hardly tasted his food. He smiled wearily and pretended to be interested in my comments, but I could see that from time to time he was having trouble breathing.

“Tell me, Martín, what are you working on?”

“It’s difficult to explain. A book I’ve been commissioned to write.”

“A novel?”

“Not exactly. I wouldn’t know how to describe it.”

“What’s important is that you’re working. I’ve always said that idleness dulls the spirit. We have to keep the brain busy, or at least the hands if we don’t have a brain.”

“But some people work more than is reasonable, Señor Sempere. Shouldn’t you take a break? How many years have you been here, always hard at work, never stopping?”

Sempere looked around him.

“This place is my life, Martín. Where else would I go? To a sunny bench in the park, to feed pigeons and complain about my rheumatism? I’d be dead in ten minutes. My place is here. And my son isn’t ready to take up the reins of the business, even if he thinks he is.”

“But he’s a good worker. And a good person.”

“Between you and me, he’s too good a person. Sometimes I look at him and wonder what will become of him the day I go. How is he going to cope?”

“All fathers say that, Señor Sempere.”

“Did yours? Forgive me, I didn’t mean to …”

“Don’t worry. My father had enough worries of his own without having to worry about me as well. I’m sure your son has more experience than you think.”

Sempere looked dubious.

“Do you know what I think he lacks?”

“Malice?”

“A woman.”

“He’ll have no shortage of girlfriends with all the turtledoves who cluster round the shop window to admire him.”

“I’m talking about a real woman, the sort who makes you become what you’re supposed to be.”

“He’s still young. Let him have fun for a few more years.”

“That’s a good one! If he’d at least have some fun. At his age, if I’d had that chorus of young girls after me, I’d have sinned like a cardinal.”

“The Lord gives bread to the toothless.”

“That’s what he needs: teeth. And a desire to bite.”

Something else seemed to be going round his mind. He was looking at me and smiling.

“Maybe you could help …”

“Me?”

“You’re a man of the world, Martín. And don’t give me that expression. I’m sure that if you apply yourself you’ll find a good woman for my son. He already has a pretty face. You can teach him the rest.”

I was speechless.

“Didn’t you want to help me?” the bookseller asked. “Well, there you are.”

“I was talking about money.”

“And I’m talking about my son, the future of this house. My whole life.”

I sighed. Sempere took my hand and pressed it with what little strength he had left.

“Promise you’ll not allow me to leave this world before I’ve seen
my son set up with a woman worth dying for. And who’ll give me a grandson.”

“If I’d known this was coming, I’d have stayed at the Novedades Café for lunch.”

Sempere smiled.

“Sometimes I think you should have been my son, Martín.”

I looked at the bookseller, who seemed more fragile and older than ever before, barely a shadow of the strong, impressive man I remembered from my childhood, and I felt the world crumbling around me. I went up to him and before I realized it, did what I’d never done in all the years I’d known him. I gave him a kiss on his forehead, which was spotted with freckles and touched by a few gray hairs.

“Do you promise?”

“I promise,” I said, as I walked to the door.

S
eñor Valera’s office occupied the top floor of an extravagant Modernist building at 442 Avenida Diagonal, just round the corner from Paseo de Gracia. The building looked like a cross between a giant grandfather clock and a pirate ship and was adorned with huge French windows and a roof with green dormers. Anywhere else the baroque and byzantine structure would have been proclaimed either as one of the seven wonders of the world or as the freakish creation of a mad artist possessed by demons. In Barcelona’s Ensanche quarter, where similar buildings cropped up everywhere like clover after rain, it barely raised an eyebrow.

I walked into the hallway and was shown to a lift that reminded me of something a giant spider might have left behind if it were weaving cathedrals instead of cobwebs. The doorman opened the cabin and imprisoned me in the strange capsule that began to rise through the middle of the stairwell. A severe-looking secretary opened the carved oak door at the top and showed me in. I gave her my name and explained that I had not made an appointment but that I was there to discuss a matter relating to the sale of a building in the Ribera quarter. Something changed in her expression.

“The tower house?” she asked.

I nodded. The secretary led me to an empty office. I sensed that this was not the official waiting room.

“Please wait, Señor Martín. I’ll let Señor Valera know you’re here.”

I spent the next forty-five minutes in that office, surrounded by bookshelves packed with volumes the size of tombstones bearing inscriptions on the spines such as “1888–1889, B.C.A. Section One. Second Title.” It seemed like irresistible reading matter. The office had a large window looking onto Avenida Diagonal that provided an excellent view over the city. The furniture smelled of fine wood, weathered and seasoned with money. Carpets and leather armchairs were reminiscent of those in a British club. I tried to lift one of the lamps presiding over the desk and guessed that it must have weighed at least thirty kilos. A huge oil painting, resting over a hearth that had never been used, portrayed the rotund and expansive presence of none other than Don Soponcio Valera y Menacho. The titanic lawyer sported a moustache and sideburns like the mane of an old lion, and his stern eyes, with the fire and steel of a hanging judge, dominated every corner of the room from the great beyond.