The Shadow of the Wind (39 page)

Some afternoons, when Jacinta went to fetch Jorge and he was late, the governess would talk to Julian. He, too, was beginning to love that severe-looking woman. Whenever a problem cast a shadow over his life, she and Miquel Moliner were soon the first to know. Once Julian told Jacinta he had seen his mother and Don Ricardo Aldaya talking in the fountain courtyard while they waited for the pupils to come out. Don Ricardo seemed to be enjoying Sophie's company, and Julian felt a little uneasy, because he was aware of the magnate's reputation as a Don Juan and of his voracious appetite for the delights of the female sex. 'I was telling your mother how much you like your new school,' Don Ricardo told him. When he said goodbye to them, Don Ricardo gave them a wink and walked off laughing boisterously. His mother was quiet during the journey home, clearly offended by the comments Don Ricardo Aldaya had made to her.

Sophie was suspicious of Julian's growing bond with the Aldayas and the way he had abandoned his old neighbourhood friends and his family. She was not alone. But whereas his mother showed her displeasure in sadness and silence, the hatter displayed only bitterness and spite. His initial enthusiasm about the widening of his clientele to include the flower of Barcelona society had evaporated. He hardly ever saw his son now and soon had to employ Quimet, a local boy and one of Julian's former friends, as a helper and apprentice in the shop. Antoni Fortuny was a man who felt he could only talk openly about hats. He locked his deeper feelings in the prison of his heart for months on end, until they became hopelessly embittered. Every day, he grew more bad tempered and irritable. He found fault with everything - from the efforts of poor Quintet to learn the trade to Sophie's attempts to make light of Julian s seeming abandonment of them.

'Your son thinks he's someone just because those rich folk treat him like a performing monkey,' he'd say in a depressed tone, full of resentment.

One day, almost three years to the day since Don Ricardo Aldaya's first visit to the Fortuny and Sons hat shop, the hatter left Quimet in charge of the shop and told him he'd be back at noon. He boldly presented himself at the offices of Aldaya's consortium on Paseo de Gracia and asked to see Don Ricardo.

'And whom do I have the honour of announcing?' asked a clerk in a haughty manner.

'His personal hatter.'

Don Ricardo received him, somewhat surprised but well disposed, imagining that perhaps Fortuny was bringing him a bill. Small shopkeepers never quite understood the protocol when it came to money.

'So tell me, what can I do for you Fortunato, old fellow?'

Without further delay, Antoni Fortuny proceeded to explain to Don Ricardo that he was very much mistaken about his son Julian.

'My son, Don Ricardo, is not the person you think he is. Quite the contrary; he is an ignorant, lazy boy, with no more talent than the pretentious ideas his mother has put into his head. He'll never get anywhere, believe me. He lacks ambition and character. You don't know him. He can be very clever at sweet-talking strangers, making them believe he knows a lot about everything, when in fact he knows nothing about anything. He's a mediocre person. I know him better than anyone, and I thought I should warn you.'

Don Ricardo Aldaya listened to the speech in silence, without blinking.

'Is that all, Fortunato?'

Seeing that it was, the industrialist pressed a button on his desk. A few moments later, the secretary who had received Fortuny on arrival appeared at the office door.

'Our friend Fortunato is leaving, Balcells,' Don Ricardo announced. 'Please accompany him to the door.'

The icy tone of the industrialist did not please the hatter.

'If you don't mind, Don Ricardo: it's Fortuny, not Fortunato.'

'Whatever. You're a very sad man, Fortuny. I'd appreciate it if you didn't come here again.'

When Fortuny found himself back on the street, he felt more alone than ever, more convinced that everyone was against him. Only a few days later, the smart clients brought in by his relationship with Aldaya began to send messages cancelling their orders and settling their bills. In just a few weeks, he had to dismiss Quimet, because there wasn't enough work for both of them. The boy wasn't much use anyhow, he told himself. He was mediocre and lazy, like all of them.

It was around this time that people in the neighbourhood began to comment that Senor Fortuny was looking much older, lonelier, more bitter. He barely spoke to anyone anymore and spent hours on end shut up in the shop, with nothing to do, watching people go by from behind his counter, feelings of disdain mingling with hope. Later people said that fashions changed, that young people no longer wore hats, and that those who did would rather go to other shops where hats were sold ready made in different sizes, with more modern designs, and at a cheaper price. The Fortuny and Sons hat shop slowly sank into a sad, silent slumber.

You're all waiting for me to die, Fortuny said to himself. Well, I might just give you that pleasure. In fact, he had started to die a long time ago.

Julian threw himself even more into the world of the Aldayas, into the only future he could conceive of, a future with Penelope. Almost two years went by, in which the two of them walked on a tightrope of secrecy together. In his own way, Zacarias had given a warning long ago. Shadows spread around Julian, and soon they would close in on him.

The first sign came one day in April 1918. Jorge Aldaya was going to be eighteen, and Don Ricardo, playing the role of great patriarch, had decided to organize (or, rather, to give orders for someone to organize) a monumental birthday party that his son did not want and from which he, Don Ricardo, would be absent: under the guise of important business commitments, he would be meeting a delicious lady, newly arrived from St Petersburg, in the blue suite of the Hotel Colon. The house on Avenida del Tibidabo was turned into a circus for the occasion: hundreds of lanterns, pennants, and stalls were set up in the gardens to delight the guests.

Almost all of Jorge Aldaya's school companions from San Gabriel's had been invited. At Julian s suggestion, Jorge had included Francisco Javier Fumero. Miquel Moliner warned them that the son of the school caretaker would feel out of place in such pompous surroundings. Francisco Javier received his invitation but, anticipating exactly the same thing, decided to turn it down. When Dona Yvonne, his mother, learned that her son was going to decline an invitation to the Aldayas' luxurious mansion, she was on the point of skinning him alive. What could that invitation be but a sign that she herself would soon be accepted into high society? The next step could only be an invitation to afternoon tea with Senora Aldaya and other ladies of unquestionable distinction. Dona Yvonne took the savings she had been scraping together out of her husband's pay and went out to buy a pretty sailor suit for her son.

Francisco Javier was already seventeen at the time, and that blue suit with short trousers, tailored to appeal to the none-too-refined sensibility of Dona Yvonne, looked grotesque and humiliating on the boy. Pressed by his mother, Francisco Javier accepted the invitation and spent a week carving a letter opener, which he intended to give Jorge as a present. On the day of the party, Dona Yvonne insisted on accompanying her son to the door of the Aldayas' house. She wanted to scent royalty and bask in the glory of seeing her son enter the doors that would soon open for her. When the moment came to put on his awful sailor suit, Francisco Javier discovered it was too small for him. Yvonne decided to adjust it somehow. They arrived late. In the meantime, taking advantage of the hubbub and of Don Ricardo's absence - who no doubt was at that very moment celebrating in his own way - Julian had slipped away from the party. He and Penelope had arranged to meet in the library, where they didn't risk running into any of the other partygoers. They were too busy devouring each other's lips to notice the couple approaching the front door of the house. Francisco Javier, dressed in his first-communion sailor suit and purple with shame, was almost being dragged by Dona Yvonne, who for the occasion had decided to resurrect a broad-brimmed hat and a matching dress adorned with flourishes and bows; they made her look like a sweet stall or, in the words of Miquel Moliner, who sighted her from afar, a bison dressed up as Madame Recamier. The two servants guarding the door didn't seem very impressed by the visitors. Dona Yvonne announced that her son, Don Francisco Javier Fumero de Sotoceballos, was making his entrance. The two servants answered, in a sarcastic tone, that the name did not ring a bell. Irritated, but keeping the composure of a woman of substance, Yvonne told her son to show them the invitation. Unfortunately, when the suit was being fixed, the card had been left on Dona Yvonne's sewing table.

Francisco Javier tried to explain the circumstances, but he stammered, and the laughter of the two servants did not help clear up the misunderstanding. Mother and son were invited to get the hell out of there. Dona Yvonne was inflamed with anger and announced that the servants didn't know who they were dealing with. The servants replied that the floor Cleaner's position was already taken.

From her bedroom window, Jacinta watched Francisco Javier turn to leave, then suddenly stop. Beyond the scene his mother was creating, shouting herself hoarse at the arrogant servants, the boy saw them: Julian kissing Penelope by the large window of the library. They were kissing with the intensity of those who belong to one another, unaware of the world around them.

The following day, during the midday break, Francisco Javier appeared unexpectedly. News of the previous day's scene had already spread among the pupils: he was met with laughter and questioned about what he'd done with his little sailor suit. The laughter ended abruptly when the boys noticed he was carrying his father's gun. There was complete silence, and many of them moved away. Only the circle formed by Aldaya, Moliner, Fernando, and Julian turned around and stared at the boy, without understanding. Francisco Javier gave no warning: he raised his rifle and aimed. Later, witnesses said there was no irritation or anger in his expression. Francisco Javier displayed the same automatic coolness with which he performed his cleaning jobs in the garden. The first bullet scraped past Julian's head. The second would have gone through his throat had Miquel Moliner not thrown himself on the caretaker's son, punched him, and wrenched the gun from him. Julian Carax watched the scene in astonishment, paralysed. Everyone thought the shots were aimed at Jorge Aldaya in revenge for the humiliation Javier had suffered the day before. Only later, when the Civil Guards were taking the boy away and the caretakers were being almost literally kicked out of their home, did Miquel Moliner go up to Julian and tell him, without any pride, that he had saved his life.

It was the last year for Julian and his companions at San Gabriel's school. Most of them were already talking about their plans, or about the plans their respective families had set up for them for the following year. Jorge Aldaya already knew that his father was sending him to study in England, and Miquel Moliner took it for granted that he would go to Barcelona University. Fernando Ramos had mentioned more than once that perhaps he would enter the seminary of the Society of Jesus, a prospect his teachers considered the wisest in his particular situation. As for Francisco Javier Fumero, all anyone knew about the boy was that, thanks to Don Ricardo Aldaya, who interceded on his behalf, he had been taken to a reformatory school high in a remote valley of the Pyrenees, where a long winter awaited him. Seeing that all his friends had found some direction in life, Julian wondered what would become of himself. His literary dreams and ambitions seemed further away and more unfeasible than ever. All he longed for was to be near Penelope.

While he pondered his future, others were planning it for him. Don Ricardo Aldaya was already preparing a post for him in his firm, to initiate him into the business. The hatter, for his part, had decided that if his son did not want to continue in the family business, he could forget about sponging off him. He had secretly set in motion his plan to send Julian to the army, where a few years of military life would cure him of his delusions of grandeur. Julian was unaware of such plans, and by the time he found out what others had arranged for him, it would be too late. Only Penelope occupied his thoughts, and now the feigned distance and the clandestine meetings no longer satisfied him. He insisted on seeing her more often, increasing the risk of discovery. Jacinta did what she could to cover for them: she lied repeatedly and concocted a thousand and one ruses to give them a few moments on their own. She understood that this was not enough for Penelope and Julian. The governess had for some time now recognized in their looks the defiance and arrogance of desire: a blind desire to be discovered, a hope that their secret would become an open scandal so that they would no longer have to hide in corners and attics, to love one another in the dark. Sometimes, when Jacinta tucked Penelope up at night, the girl would burst into floods of tears and confess how she longed to flee with Julian, to catch the first train and escape to a place where nobody would know them. Jacinta, who remembered the sort of world that existed beyond the iron gates of the Aldaya mansion, shuddered and tried to dissuade her. Penelope was docile by nature, and the fear she saw in Jacinta's face was enough to soothe her. Julian was another matter.