The Shadow of the Wind (38 page)

One day, while she was praying in the cathedral, a man, whom she recognized as Zacarias, came up to her. He dressed as he always did and held his malicious cat on his lap. He did not look a single day older and still sported magnificent nails, like the nails of a duchess, long and pointed. The angel admitted that he was there because God didn't plan to answer her prayers. But he told her not to worry because, one way or another, he would send her a child. He leaned over her, murmured the word 'Tibidabo', and kissed her very tenderly on the lips. At the touch of those fine, honeyed lips, Jacinta had a vision: she would have a daughter without further knowledge of man (which, judging from the three years in the bedroom with her husband, who insisted on doing his thing while covering her head with a pillow and mumbling 'Don't look, you slut,' was a relief). This girl would come to her in a very faraway city, trapped between a crescent of mountains and a sea of light, a city filled with buildings that could exist only in dreams. Later Jacinta was unable to tell whether Zacarias's visit had been another of her dreams or whether the angel really had come to her in Toledo Cathedral, with his cat and his scarlet-manicured nails. What she didn't doubt for a moment was the truth of those predictions. That very afternoon she consulted the parish deacon, who was a well-read man and had seen the world (it was said that he had gone as far as Andorra and that he spoke a little Basque). The deacon claimed he did not know of an angel Zacarias among the winged legions of the heavens, but listened attentively to Jacinta's vision. After much consideration, and going by the description of some sort of cathedral that, in the words of the clairvoyant, sounded like a large hair comb made of melting chocolate, the wise man said, 'Jacinta, what you've seen is Barcelona, the great enchantress, and the Expiatory Temple of the Sagrada Familia.' Two weeks later, armed with a bundle of clothes, a missal, and her first smile in five years, Jacinta was on her way to Barcelona, convinced that everything the angel had described to her would come true.

Months of great hardship were to pass before Jacinta would find a permanent job in one of the stores of Aldaya and Sons, near the pavilions of the old 1888 Universal Exhibition in Ciudadela Park. The Barcelona of her dreams had changed into a sinister, hostile city, full of closed mansions, full of factories that poured forth their foggy breath, poisoning the air with coal and sulphur. Jacinta knew from the start that this city was a woman, cruel and vain; she learned to fear her and never look her in the eye. She lived alone in a pension in the Ribera quarter, where her pay barely afforded her a miserable room with no windows, whose only source of light came from the candles she stole from the cathedral. She kept these alight all night to scare away the rats that had already gnawed at the ears and fingers of a six-month-old baby, the child of Ramoneta - a prostitute who rented the room next door and the only friend Jacinta had managed to make in Barcelona in eleven months. That winter it rained almost every day, and the rain was blackened by soot. Soon Jacinta began to fear that Zacarias had deceived her, that she had come to that terrible city to die of cold, misery and oblivion.

But Jacinta was prepared to survive. She went to the store every day before dawn and did not come out again until well after nightfall. There Don Ricardo Aldaya happened to notice her looking after the daughter of one of the foremen, who had fallen ill with consumption. When he saw the dedication and the tenderness that the young girl exuded, he decided to take her home with him to look after his wife, who was pregnant with what would be his firstborn. Jacinta's prayers had been answered. That night Jacinta saw Zacarias again in her dreams. The angel was no longer dressed in black. He was naked, and his skin was covered in scales. He didn't have his cat with him anymore, but a white snake coiled round his torso. His hair had grown down to his waist, and his smile, the honeyed smile she had kissed in Toledo Cathedral, was now lined with triangular, serrated teeth, like those she'd seen in some of the deep-sea fish that thrashed their tails in the fish market. Years later the young woman would reveal this vision to an eighteen-year-old Julian Carax, recalling how the day she left the pension in the Ribera quarter and moved to the Aldaya mansion, she was told that her friend Ramoneta had been stabbed to death in the doorway the night before and that Ramoneta's baby had died of cold in her arms. When they heard the news, the guests at the pension came to blows, shouting and scratching over the meagre belongings of the dead woman. The only thing they left was what had been Ramoneta's greatest treasure: a book. Jacinta recognized it, because often, at night, Ramoneta had asked her to read her one or two pages, for Ramoneta had never learned to read.

Four months later Jorge Aldaya was born, and although Jacinta was to offer him all the affection that his mother never knew how to give him, or never wished to - for she was an ethereal lady, Jacinta thought, who always seemed trapped in her own reflection - the governess realized that this was not the child Zacarias had promised her. During those years Jacinta gave up her youth and became a different woman. The other Jacinta had been left behind in the pension in the Ribera quarter, as dead as Ramoneta. Now she lived in the shadow of the Aldayas' luxuries, far from that dark city that she had come to hate so much and into which she did not venture, not even on her monthly day off. She learned to live through others, through a family that sat on top of a fortune the size of which she could scarcely conceive. She lived in the expectation of that child, who would be a female, like the city, and to whom she would give all the love with which God had poisoned her soul. Sometimes Jacinta asked herself whether that dreamy peace that filled her days, that absence of consciousness, was what some people called happiness, and she wanted to believe that God, in His infinite silence, had, in His way, answered her prayers.

Penelope Aldaya was born in the spring of 1902. By then Don Ricardo Aldaya had already bought the house on Avenida del Tibidabo, that rambling mansion that Jacinta's fellow servants were convinced lay under the influence of some powerful spell, but which Jacinta did not fear, because she knew that what others took to be magic was nothing more than a presence that only she could capture in dreams: the shadow of Zacarias, who hardly resembled the man she remembered and who now only manifested himself as a wolf walking on his two hind legs.

Penelope was a fragile child, pale and slender. Jacinta saw her grow like a flower in winter. For years she watched over her every night, personally prepared every one of her meals, sewed her clothes, was by her side when she went through her many illnesses, when she said her first words, when she became a woman. Senora Aldaya was one more figure in the scenery, a prop that came on- and offstage according to the dictates of decorum. Before going to bed, she would come and say goodnight to her daughter and tell her she loved her more than anything in the world, that she was the most important thing in the universe to her. Jacinta never told Penelope that she loved her. The nurse knew that those who really love, love in silence, with deeds and not with words. Secretly Jacinta despised Senora Aldaya, that vain, empty creature who slowly grew old in the corridors of the mansion, weighed down by the jewels with which her husband - who for years had set anchor in foreign ports - kept her quiet. She hated her because, of all women, God had chosen her to give birth to Penelope while her own womb, the womb of the true mother, remained barren. In time, as if the words of her husband had been prophetic, Jacinta even lost her womanly shape. She grew thin and austere in appearance, and wore the look of tired skin and tired bone. Her breasts withered until they were but scraps of skin, her hips were like those of a boy, and her flesh, hard and angular, didn't even catch the eye of Don Ricardo Aldaya, who only needed to sense a hint of vitality to send him off in a frenzy - as all the maids in the house, and in the houses of his close friends, knew only too well. Better this way, thought Jacinta. She had no time for nonsense.

All her time was devoted to Penelope. She read to her, she accompanied her everywhere, she bathed her, dressed her, undressed her, combed her hair, took her out for walks, put her to bed and woke her up. But above all she spoke to her. Everyone took Jacinta for a batty nurse, a spinster with nothing in her life other than her job in the house, but nobody knew the truth: Jacinta was not only Penelope's mother, she was her best friend. From the moment the girl began to speak and articulate her thoughts, which was much sooner than Jacinta remembered in any other child, they both shared their secrets and their lives.

The passing of time only strengthened this union. When Penelope reached adolescence, they were already inseparable. Jacinta saw Penelope blossom into a woman whose beauty and radiance were evident to more eyes than just her own. When that mysterious boy called Julian came to the house, Jacinta noticed that, from the very first moment, a current flowed between him and Penelope. They were joined by a bond, similar to the one that joined her to Penelope, but also different. More intense. Dangerous. At first she thought she would come to hate the boy, but soon she realized that she did not hate Julian Carax and would never be able to. As Penelope fell under Julian's spell, she, too, allowed herself to be dragged into it and in time desired only what Penelope desired. Nobody had noticed, nobody had paid attention, but, as usual, the essential issue had been settled before the story had even begun, and by then it was too late.

Many months of wistful looks and longings would pass before Julian Carax and Penelope could be alone together. Their lives were ruled by chance. They met in corridors, they looked at one another from opposite ends of the table, they brushed silently against each other, they felt each other's absence. They exchanged their first words in the library of the house on Avenida del Tibidabo one stormy afternoon when 'Villa Penelope' was filled with the dim light of candles - only a few seconds stolen from the darkness in which Julian thought he saw in the girl's eyes the certainty that they both felt the same, that the same secret was devouring them. Nobody seemed to notice. Nobody but Jacinta, who watched with growing anxiety the game of furtive glances that Penelope and Julian were playing under the very nose of the Aldayas. She feared for them.

By then Julian had begun to have sleepless nights, writing stories for Penelope from midnight to dawn. He would find any old excuse to go up to the house on Avenida del Tibidabo, then look for the moment when he could slip into Jacinta's room and give his pages to her so that she, in turn, could give them to the girl. Sometimes Jacinta would hand him a note that Penelope had written, and he would spend days rereading it. That game went on for months. While time brought them no good fortune, Julian did whatever was necessary to be close to Penelope. Jacinta helped him, for she wanted to see Penelope happy, to keep that light glowing. Julian, for his part, felt that the casual innocence of the beginning was now fading and it was time to start making some sacrifices. That was why he began to lie to Don Ricardo about his plans for the future, to fake an enthusiasm for a career in banking and finance, to feign an affection and an attachment for Jorge Aldaya that he did not feel, in order to justify his almost constant presence in the house on Avenida del Tibidabo; to say only what he knew others wanted to hear him say, to read their looks and their hopes, to put aside honesty and sincerity, and to feel that he was selling his very soul. He began to fear that if he ever did come to deserve Penelope, there would be nothing left of the Julian who saw her the first time. Sometimes Julian would wake up at dawn, burning with anger, longing to tell the world his real feelings, to face Don Ricardo Aldaya and tell him he had no interest whatsoever in his fortune, his opportunities for the future, or his company; that all he wanted was his daughter, Penelope, and was thinking of taking her as far away as possible from that empty, shrouded world in which her father had imprisoned her. The light of day dispelled his courage.

There were times when Julian opened his heart to Jacinta, who was beginning to love the boy more than she might have wished. She would often leave Penelope for a moment and, under the pretext of going to collect Jorge from school, would see Julian and deliver Penelope's messages to him. That was how she met Fernando, who, many years later, would be her only remaining friend while she awaited death in the hell of Santa Lucia -the hell that had been prophesied by the angel Zacarias. Sometimes the nurse would mischievously take Penelope with her to the school and facilitate a brief encounter between the two youngsters, watching a love grow between them such as she had never known, which had always been denied her. It was also around this time that Jacinta noticed the sombre and disturbing presence of that quiet boy whom everyone called Francisco Javier, the son of the school's caretaker. She would catch him spying on them, reading their gestures from afar and devouring Penelope with his eyes.

Jacinta kept a photograph of Julian and Penelope taken by Recassens, the Aldayas' official portrait photographer, by the door of the hat shop in Ronda de San Antonio. It was an innocent image, taken at midday in the presence of Don Ricardo and of Sophie Carax. Jacinta always carried it with her. One day, while she was waiting for Jorge outside San Gabriel's, the governess absentmindedly left her bag by one of the fountains and, when she went back for it, found young Fumero prowling around the area, looking at her nervously. That night she looked for the photograph but couldn't find it and was certain that the boy had stolen it. On another occasion, a few weeks later, Francisco Javier Fumero went up to Jacinta and asked her whether she could give Penelope something from him. When Jacinta asked what this thing was, the boy pulled out a piece of cloth in which he had wrapped what looked like a figure carved in pinewood. Jacinta recognized it was a carving of Penelope, and felt a shiver. Before she was able to say anything, the boy left. On her way back to the house on Avenida del Tibidabo, Jacinta threw the figure out of the car window, as if it were a piece of stinking carrion. More than once Jacinta was to wake up at dawn, covered in sweat, plagued by nightmares in which that troubled-looking boy threw himself on Penelope with the cold and indifferent brutality of some strange insect.