The Angel's Game (38 page)

“Isabella might say that about me, but don’t think she doesn’t tell me things about you,” I countered.

I noticed a change in his expression and let my words sink through the layers of his armor. He handed me a cup of coffee with an attentive smile and rescued the conversation with a trick unworthy even of a second-rate operetta.

“Goodness knows what she says about me.”

I left him to soak in uncertainty for a few moments.

“Would you like to know?” I asked casually, hiding a smile behind my cup.

Sempere’s son shrugged.

“She says you’re a good and generous man. She says that people don’t understand you because you’re shy and they can’t see beyond that, and, I quote, you have the presence of a film star and a fascinating personality.”

Sempere’s son looked at me in astonishment.

“I’m not going to lie to you, Sempere, my friend. The truth is I’m glad you’ve brought up the subject because I’ve been wanting to talk to you about it and didn’t know how.”

“Talk about what?”

I lowered my voice.

“Between you and me, Isabella wants to work here because she admires you and, I fear, is secretly in love with you.”

Sempere gulped.

“But pure love, eh? Spiritual. Like the love of a Dickens heroine, if you see what I mean. No frivolities or childish nonsense. Isabella might be young, but she’s a real woman. You must have noticed, I’m sure …”

“Now that you mention it …”

“And I’m referring not to her—if you’ll pardon me—exquisitely tender frame but to her kindness and the inner beauty that is just waiting for the right moment to emerge and make some fortunate man the happiest in the world.”

Sempere didn’t know where to look.

“Besides, she has hidden talents. She speaks languages. She plays the piano like an angel. She has a good head for numbers. And to cap it all she’s a wonderful cook. Look at me. I’ve put on a few kilos since she started working for me. Delicacies that even at La Tour d’Argent … Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed?”

“She didn’t mention that she can cook …”

“I’m talking about love at first sight.”

“Well, really …”

“Do you know what the matter is? Deep down, although she gives the impression she’s an untamed shrew, the girl is docile and shy to a pathological degree. I blame the nuns: they unhinge them with all those stories of hell and all those sewing lessons. Long live secular education.”

“Well, I would have sworn she took me for a little less than an idiot,” Sempere assured me.

“There you are. Irrefutable proof. Sempere, my friend, when a woman treats you like an idiot it means her hormones are racing!”

“Are you sure about that?”

“As sure as the Bank of Spain. Believe me, I know quite a lot about this subject.”

“That’s what my father says. And what am I to do?”

“Well, that depends. Do you like the girl?”

“Like her? I don’t know. How do you know if… ?”

“It’s very simple. Do you look at her furtively and feel like biting her?”

“Biting her?”

“On her backside, for example.”

“Señor Martín!”

“Don’t be bashful, we’re among gentlemen. It’s a known fact that we men are the missing link between the pirate and the pig. Do you like her or don’t you?”

“Well, Isabella is an attractive girl.”

“What else?”

“Intelligent. Pleasant. Hardworking.”

“Go on.”

“And a good Christian, I think. Not that I’m much of a practicing Catholic, but—”

“Don’t I know it. Isabella almost lives in the church. Those nuns, I tell you!”

“But quite frankly, it had never occurred to me to bite her.”

“It hadn’t occurred to you until I mentioned it.”

“I must say, I think talking about her like that—or about any other woman—shows a lack of respect. You should be ashamed,” protested Sempere’s son.

“Mea culpa,” I intoned, raising my hands in a gesture of surrender. “But never mind—we each show our devotion in our own way. I’m a frivolous, superficial creature, hence my canine focus, but you, with that
au-rea gravitas
of yours, are a man of mysterious and profound feelings. The important thing is that the girl adores you and that the feeling is mutual.”

“Well …”

“Don’t you ‘well’ me. Let’s face it, Sempere. You’re a respectable and responsible man. Had it been me, what can I say? But you’re not a fellow to play fast and loose with the noble, pure feelings of a ripe young girl. Am I mistaken?”

“I suppose not.”

“Well, that’s it then.”

“What is?”

“Isn’t it obvious?”

“No.”

“It’s time to go courting.”

“Excuse me?”

“Courting, or, in scientific terms, time for a kiss and a cuddle. Look here, Sempere, for some strange reason centuries of supposed civilization have brought us to a situation in which one cannot go sidling up to women on street corners or asking them to marry us, just like that. First there has to be courtship.”

“Marry? Have you gone mad?”

“What I’m trying to say is that perhaps—and this is your idea even if you’re not aware of it—today or tomorrow or the next day, when you get over all this shaking and dribbling over her, you could take Isabella out when she finishes work at the bookshop. Take her out for afternoon tea somewhere special, and you’ll realize once and for all that you were made for each other. You could take her to Els Quatre Gats, where they’re so stingy they dim the lights to save on electricity—that always helps in these situations. Ask for some curd cheese for the girl with a
good spoonful of honey; that always whets the appetite. Then, casually, you let her have a swig or two of that muscatel that goes straight to the head. At that point, placing a hand on her knee, you stun her with that sweet talk you keep to yourself, you rascal.”

“But I don’t know anything about her, or what interests her, or—”

“She’s interested in the same things as you. She’s interested in books, in literature, in the very smell of the treasures you have here—and in the penny novels with their promise of romance and adventure. She’s interested in casting aside loneliness and in not wasting time trying to understand that in this rotten world nothing is worth a single céntimo if there isn’t someone to share it with. Now you know the essentials. The rest you can find out and enjoy as you go along.”

Sempere looked thoughtful, glancing first at his cup of coffee, which he hadn’t touched, then at me as I attempted with great difficulty to maintain the smile of a stockbroker.

“I’m not sure whether to thank you or report you to the police,” he said at last.

Just then we heard footsteps in the bookshop. A few seconds later Sempere senior put his head round the door of the back room and stood there looking at us with a frown.

“What’s going on? The shop is left unattended and you’re sitting here chattering as if it were a bank holiday. What if a customer had come in? Or some scoundrel trying to make off with our goods?”

Sempere’s son sighed, rolling his eyes.

“Don’t worry, Señor Sempere. Books are the only things in this world that no one wants to steal,” I said, winking at him.

His face lit up with a knowing smile. Sempere’s son took the opportunity to escape from my clutches and slink off back to the bookshop. His father sat next to me and sniffed at the cup of coffee his son had left untouched.

“What does the doctor say about the effects of caffeine on the heart?” I asked.

“That man can’t even find his backside with an anatomy book. What would he know about the heart?”

“More than you, I’m sure,” I replied, snatching the cup from him.

“I’m as strong as an ox, Martín.”

“You’re a mule, that’s what you are. Please go back upstairs and get into bed.”

“It’s only worth staying in bed if you’re young and in good company.”

“If you want company, I’ll find someone for you, but I don’t think your heart is up to it right now.”

“Martín, at my age, eroticism is reduced to enjoying flan and staring at widows’ necks. The one I’m worried about here is my heir. Any progress on that score?”

“We’re fertilizing the soil and sowing the seeds. We’ll have to see if the weather is favorable and we reap a harvest. In two or three days I’ll be able to give you a report on the first shoots that is 60 to 70 percent reliable.”

Sempere gave a satisfied smile.

“A stroke of genius, sending Isabella to be our shop assistant,” he said. “But don’t you think she’s a bit young for my son?”

“He’s the one who seems a bit green, if I may be frank. He’s got to pull himself together or Isabella will eat him alive. Thank goodness he’s a decent sort, otherwise …”

“How can I repay you?”

“By going upstairs and getting into bed. If you need some spicy company, take a copy
of Moll Flanders.”

“You’re right. Good old Defoe never lets you down.”

“Not even if he tries. Go on, off to bed.”

Sempere stood up. He moved with difficulty and his breathing was labored, with a hoarse rattle that frightened me. I took his arm and noticed that his skin was cold.

“Don’t be alarmed, Martín. It’s my metabolism; it’s a little slow.”

“Today it’s as slow as
War and Peace.”

“A little nap and I’ll be as good as new.”

I decided to go up with him to the apartment where father and son lived, above the bookshop, and make sure he got under the blankets. It took us a quarter of an hour to negotiate the stairs. On the way we met
one of the neighbors, an affable schoolteacher called Don Anacleto, who taught language and literature at the Jesuit school in Calle Caspe.

“How’s life looking today, Sempere, my friend?”

“Rather steep, Don Anacleto.”

With the teacher’s help I managed to reach the first floor with Sempere practically hanging from my neck.

“If you will forgive me, I must retire to rest after a long day spent fighting that pack of primates I have for pupils,” the teacher announced. “I’m telling you, this country is going to disintegrate within one generation. They’ll tear one another to pieces like rats.”

Sempere made a gesture to indicate that I shouldn’t pay too much attention to Don Anacleto.

“He’s a good man,” he whispered, “but he drowns in a glass of water.”

When I stepped into the apartment I was suddenly reminded of that distant morning when I had arrived there covered in blood, holding a copy of
Great Expectations.
I recalled how Sempere had carried me up to his home and given me a cup of hot cocoa after the doctor left and how he’d whispered soothing words, cleaning the blood off my body with a warm towel and a gentleness that nobody had ever shown me before. At that time Sempere was a strong man and to me he seemed like a giant in every way; without him I don’t think I would have survived those years of scant hope. Little or nothing remained of that strength as I held him in my arms to help him into bed and covered him with a couple of blankets. I sat down next to him and took his hand, not knowing what to do.

“Listen, if we’re both going to start crying our eyes out you’d better leave,” he said.

“Take care, you hear me?”

“I’ll wrap myself in cotton wool, don’t worry.”

I nodded and started toward the door.

“Martín?”

At the doorway I turned round. Sempere was looking at me with the same anxiety he had shown that morning long ago, when I’d lost a few teeth and much of my innocence. I left before he could ask me what was wrong.

O
ne of the first expedients of the professional writer that Isabella had learned from me was the art of procrastination. Every veteran in the trade knows that any activity, from sharpening a pencil to cataloging daydreams, takes precedence over sitting down at one’s desk and squeezing one’s brain. Isabella had absorbed this fundamental lesson by osmosis and when I got home, instead of finding her at her desk, I surprised her in the kitchen as she was giving the last touches to a dinner that smelled and looked as if its preparation had been a question of a few hours.

“Are we celebrating something?” I asked.

“With that face of yours, I don’t think so.”

“What’s the smell?”

“Caramelized duck with baked pears and chocolate sauce. I found the recipe in one of your cookbooks.”

“I don’t own any cookbooks.”

Isabella got up and brought over a leather-bound volume, which she placed on the table:
The 101 Best Recipes of French Cuisine
, by Michel Aragon.

“That’s what you think. On the second row of the library bookshelves, I’ve found all sorts of things, including a handbook on marital hygiene by Dr. Pérez-Aguado with some very suggestive illustrations and gems such as ‘Woman, in accordance with the divine plan, has no knowledge of carnal desire and her spiritual and sentimental fulfillment
is sublimated in the natural exercise of motherhood and household chores.’ You’ve got a veritable King Solomon’s mine there.”

“Can you tell me what you were looking for on the second row of the shelves?”

“Inspiration. Which I found.”

“But of a culinary persuasion. We’d agreed that you were going to write every day, with or without inspiration.”

“I’m stuck. And it’s your fault, because you’ve got me working two jobs and mixed up in your schemes with the immaculate son of Sempere.”

“Do you think it’s right to make fun of the man who’s madly in love with you?”

“What?”

“You heard me. Sempere’s son confessed to me that you’ve robbed him of sleep. Literally. He can’t sleep, he can’t eat, and he can’t even pee, poor guy, for thinking so much about you all day.”

“You’re delirious.”

“The one who is delirious is poor Sempere. You should have seen him. I came very close to shooting him, to put an end to his pain and misery.”

“But he pays no attention to me whatsoever,” Isabella protested.

“Because he doesn’t know how to open his heart and find the words with which to express his feelings. We men are like that. Brutish and primitive.”

“He had no trouble finding words to tell me off for not putting a collection
of the National Episodes
in the right order!”