The Shadow of the Wind (27 page)

A
FRONT DOOR OF ROTTED WOOD LET US INTO A COURTYARD
guarded by gas lamps that flickered above gargoyles and angels, their features disintegrating on the old stone. A staircase led to the first floor, where a rectangle of light marked the main entrance to the hospice. The gaslight radiating from this opening gave an ocher tone to the miasma that emanated from within. An angular, predatory figure observed us coolly from the shadows of the door's archway, her eyes the same color as her habit. She held a steaming wooden bucket that gave off an indescribable stench.

“Hail-Mary-Full-of-Grace-Conceived-Without-Sin!” Fermín called out enthusiastically.

“Where's the coffin?” answered the voice from up high, serious and taciturn.

“Coffin?” Fermín and I replied in unison.

“Aren't you from the undertaker's?” asked the nun in a weary voice.

I wondered whether that was a comment on our appearance or a genuine question. Fermín's face lit up at such a providential opportunity.

“The coffin is in the van. First we'd like to examine the customer. Pure technicality.”

I felt overpowered by nausea.

“I thought Mr. Collbató was going to come in person,” said the nun.

“Mr. Collbató begs to be excused, but a rather complicated embalming has cropped up at the last moment. A circus strongman.”

“Do you work with Mr. Collbató in the funeral parlor?”

“We're his right and left hands, respectively. Wilfred the Hairy at your service, and here, at my side, my apprentice and student, Sansón Carrasco.”

“Pleased to meet you,” I rounded off.

The nun gave us a brief looking-over and nodded, indifferent to the pair of scarecrows reflected in her eyes.

“Welcome to Santa Lucía. I'm Sister Hortensia, the one who called you. Follow me.”

We followed Sister Hortensia without a word through a cavernous corridor whose smell reminded me of the subway tunnels. It was flanked by doorless frames through which one could make out candlelit halls filled with rows of beds, piled up against the wall and covered with mosquito nets that moved in the air like shrouds. I could hear groans and see glimpses of human shapes through the netting.

“This way,” Sister Hortensia beckoned, a few yards ahead of us.

We entered a wide vault, where I found no difficulty in situating the stage for the Tenebrarium described by Fermín. The darkness obscured what at first seemed to me a collection of wax figures, sitting or abandoned in corners, with dead, glassy eyes that shone like tin coins in the candlelight. I thought that perhaps they were dolls or remains of the old museum. Then I realized that they were moving, though very slowly, even stealthily. It was impossible to tell their age or gender. The rags covering them were the color of ash.

“Mr. Collbató said not to touch or clean anything,” said Sister Hortensia, looking slightly apologetic. “We just placed the poor thing in one of the boxes that was lying around here, because he was beginning to drip, but that's done.”

“You did the right thing. You can't be too careful,” agreed Fermín.

I threw him a despairing look. He shook his head calmly, indicating that I should leave him in charge of the situation. Sister Hortensia led us to what appeared to be a cell with no ventilation or light, at the end of a narrow passage. She took one of the gas lamps that hung from the wall and handed it to us.

“Will you be long? I'm rather busy.”

“Don't worry about us. You get on with your things, and we'll take him away.”

“All right. If you need anything I'll be down in the basement, in the gallery for the bedridden. If it's not too much bother, take him out through the back door. Don't let the others see him. It's bad for the patients' morale.”

“We quite understand,” I said in a faltering voice.

Sister Hortensia gazed at me for a moment with vague curiosity. When I saw her more closely, I noticed that she was quite an age, almost an elderly woman. Few years separated her from the hospice's guests.

“Listen, isn't the apprentice a bit young for this sort of work?” she asked.

“The truths of life know no age, Sister,” remarked Fermín.

The nun nodded and smiled at me sweetly. There was no suspicion in that look, only sadness.

“Even so,” she murmured.

She wandered off into the shadows, carrying her bucket and dragging her shadow like a bridal veil. Fermín pushed me into the cell. It was a dismal room built into the walls of a cave that sweated with damp. Chains ending in hooks hung from the ceiling, and the cracked floor was broken up by a sewage grating. In the center of the room, on a grayish marble table, was a wooden crate for industrial packaging. Fermín raised the lamp, and we caught a glimpse of the deceased between the straw padding. Parchment features, incomprehensible, jagged and frozen. The swollen skin was purple. The eyes were open: white, like broken eggshells.

The sight made my stomach turn, and I looked away.

“Come on, let's get down to work,” ordered Fermín.

“Are you mad?”

“I mean we have to find this Jacinta woman before we're found out.”

“How?”

“How do you think? By asking.”

We peered into the corridor to make sure Sister Hortensia had vanished. Then we scurried back to the hall we had previously crossed. The wretched figures were still observing us, with looks that ranged from curiosity to fear and, in some cases, to greed.

“Watch it, some of these would sink their teeth in you if they could, to become young again,” said Fermín. “Age makes them all look as meek as lambs, but there are as many sons of bitches in here as out there, or more. Because these are the ones who have lasted and buried the rest. Don't feel sorry for them. Go on, begin with the ones in the corner—they look toothless.”

If those words were meant to give me courage for the mission, they failed miserably. I looked at the group of human remains that languished in the corner and smiled at them. It occurred to me that their very presence was testimony to the moral emptiness of the universe and the mechanical brutality with which it destroys the parts it no longer needs. Fermín seemed able to read these profound thoughts and nodded gravely.

“Mother Nature is the meanest of bitches, that's the sad truth,” he said. “Be courageous, and go for it.”

My first round of inquiries as to the whereabouts of Jacinta Coronado produced only empty looks, groans, burps, and ravings. Fifteen minutes later I called it a day and joined Fermín to see whether he'd had better luck. His discouragement was all too obvious.

“How are we going to find Jacinta Coronado in this shithole?”

“I don't know. This is a cauldron of idiots. I've tried the Sugus candy trick, but they seem to think they're suppositories.”

“What if we ask Sister Hortensia? We tell her the truth and have done with it.”

“Telling the truth should be kept as a last resort, Daniel, even more so to a nun. Let's use up all our powder first. Look at that little group over there. They seem quite jolly. I'm sure they're very articulate. Go and question them.”

“And what are you planning to do?”

“I'll keep watch in the rear guard, in case the penguin returns. You get on with your business.”

With little or no hope of success, I went up to a group of patients occupying another corner of the room.

“Good evening,” I said, realizing instantly how absurd my greeting was, because in there it was always nighttime. “I'm looking for Señora Jacinta Coronado. Co-ro-na-do. Do any of you know her, or could you tell me where to find her?”

I was confronted by four faces corrupted by greed. There's something here, I thought. Maybe all's not lost.

“Jacinta Coronado?” I insisted.

The four patients exchanged looks and nodded to one another. One of them, a potbellied man without a single hair to be seen on his body, seemed to be their leader. His appearance and manner made me think of a happy Nero, plucking his harp while Rome was rotting at his feet. With a majestic gesture, the Nero figure smiled at me playfully. I returned the smile, hopefully.

The guy gestured at me to come closer, as if he wanted to whisper something in my ear. I hesitated, then leaned forward.

I lent my ear to the patient's lips—so close that I could feel his fetid, warm breath on my skin. “Can you tell me where I can find Señora Jacinta Coronado?” I asked for the last time. I was afraid he'd bite me. Instead he emitted a violently loud fart. His companions burst out laughing and clapped with joy. I took a few steps back, but it was too late: the flatulent vapors had already hit me. It was then I noticed, close to me, an old man, all hunched up, with a prophet's beard, thin hair, and fiery eyes, who leaned on a walking stick and gazed at the others with disdain.

“You're wasting your time, young man. Juanito only knows how to let off farts, and those who are with him can only laugh and sniff them. As you see, the social structure here isn't very different from that of the outside world.”

The ancient philosopher spoke in a solemn voice and with perfect diction. He looked me up and down, taking the measure of me.

“You're looking for Jacinta, I think I heard?”

I nodded, astounded by the appearance of intelligent life in that den of horrors.

“And what for?”

“I'm her grandson.”

“And I'm the Marquis of Crèmebrûlée. You're a terrible liar, that's what you are. Tell me what you want to see her for or I'll play the madman. It's easy here. And if you intend to ask these poor wretches one by one, you'll soon see what I mean.”

Juanito and his gang of inhalers were still howling with laughter. The soloist then gave off an encore, more muted and prolonged than the previous one. It sounded like a hiss, emulating the puncture of a tire, and proved that Juanito's control over his sphincter verged on virtuosity. I yielded to the facts.

“You're right. I'm not a relative of Señora Coronado, but I need to speak to her. It's a matter of the utmost importance.”

The old man came up to me. He had a wicked, catlike smile, the smile of a mischievous child, and his eyes were branded with cunning.

“Can you help me?” I begged.

“That depends on how much you can help me.”

“If it's in my power, I'll be delighted to help you. Would you like me to deliver a message to your family?”

The old man laughed bitterly. “It's my family who's stuck me in this hole. They're a load of leeches, likely to steal my underpants while they're still warm. Hell can take them—or the city hall. I've kept them and put up with them for long enough. What I want is a woman.”

“Excuse me?”

The old man looked at me impatiently.

“Being young is no excuse for slow wit, kid. I'm telling you I want a woman. A female, a maid, or a young filly of a top breed. Young—under fifty-five, that is—and healthy, with no sores or fractures.”

“I'm not sure if I understand….”

“You understand me perfectly. I want to have it off with a woman who has teeth and won't pee on me, before I depart for the other world. I don't mind whether she's good-looking or not; I'm half blind, and at my age any girl who has anything to hold onto is a Venus. Am I making myself clear?”

“Crystal. But I don't see how I'm going to find a woman for you….”

“When I was your age, there was something in the service sector called ladies of easy virtue. I know the world changes, but never in essence. Find one for me, plump and fun-loving, and we'll do business. And if you're asking yourself about my ability to enjoy a lady, I want you to know I'm quite content to pinch her backside and feel up her bumpers. That's the advantage of experience.”

“Technicalities are your affair, sir, but right now I can't bring a woman to you here.”

“I might be a dirty old man, but I'm not stupid. I know that. Your promise is good enough for me.”

“And how do you know I won't say yes just to get you to tell me where Jacinta Coronado is?”

The old man gave me a sly smile. “You give me your word, and leave any problems of conscience to me.”

I looked around me. Juanito was starting on the second half of his recital. Hope was ebbing away. Fulfilling this horny granddad's request seemed to be the only thing that made any sense in that purgatory. “I give you my word. I'll do what I can.”

The old man smiled from ear to ear. I counted three teeth.

“Blond, even if it's peroxide. Pneumatically endowed and skilled at talking dirty, if possible. Of all senses, the one I preserve best is my hearing.”

“I'll see what I can do. Now, tell me where I can find Jacinta Coronado.”

Y
OU'VE PROMISED WHAT TO THAT OLD
M
ETHUSELAH
?”

“You heard.”

“You meant it as a joke, I hope.”

“I don't lie to an old man who is at death's door, no matter how fresh he turns out to be.”

“And that does you credit, Daniel, but how do you think you're going to slip a whore into this holy house?”

“Paying three times as much, I suppose. I leave all specific details to you.”

Fermín shrugged resignedly. “Oh, well, a deal's a deal. We'll think of something. But remember, next time a negotiation of this nature turns up, let me do the talking.”

“Agreed.”

Just as the crafty old devil had instructed, we found Jacinta Coronado in a loft that could be reached only from a staircase on the third floor. According to the old man, the attic was the refuge for the few patients whom fate had not yet had the decency to deprive of understanding. Apparently this hidden wing had, in its day, housed the rooms of Baltasar Deulofeu, aka Laszlo de Vicherny, from where he governed the Tenebrarium's activities and cultivated the arts of love newly arrived from the East, amid scented vapors and oils. And there was no lack of scent now, though of a very different nature. A woman who could only be Jacinta Coronado languished in a wicker chair, wrapped in a blanket.

“Señora Coronado? I asked, raising my voice, in case the poor thing was deaf, half-witted, or both.

The elderly woman examined us carefully, with some reserve. Her eyes looked blurred, and only a few wisps of whitish hair covered her head. I noticed that she gave me a puzzled look, as if she'd seen me before but couldn't remember where. I was afraid Fermín was going to rush into introducing me as the son of Carax or some similar lie, but all he did was kneel down next to the old lady and take her shaky, wrinkled hand.

“Jacinta, I'm Fermín, and this handsome young lad is my friend Daniel. Father Fernando Ramos sends us. He wasn't able to come today because he had twelve masses to say—you know what the calendar of saints' days is like—but he sends you his best regards. How are you feeling?”

The old woman smiled sweetly at Fermín. My friend stroked her face and her forehead. She appreciated the touch of another skin like a purring cat. I felt a lump in my throat.

“What a stupid question, wasn't it?” Fermín went on. “What you'd like is to be out there, dancing a fox-trot. You have the looks of a dancer; everyone must tell you that.”

I had never seen him treat anyone with such delicacy, not even Bernarda. His words were pure flattery, but the tone and expression on his face were sincere.

“What pretty things you say,” she murmured in a voice that was broken from not having had anyone to speak to or anything to say.

“Not half as pretty as you, Jacinta. Do you think we could ask you some questions? Like on a radio contest, you know?”

The old woman just blinked for an answer.

“I'd say that's a yes. Do you remember Penélope, Jacinta? Penélope Aldaya? It's her we'd like to ask you about.”

Jacinta's eyes suddenly lit up and she nodded.

“My girl,” she murmured, and it looked like she was going to burst into tears.

“The very one. You do remember, don't you? We're friends of Julián.

Julián Carax, the one who told scary stories. You remember that, too, don't you?”

The old woman's eyes shone, as if those words and the touch on her skin were bringing life back to her by the minute.

“Father Fernando, from San Gabriel's, told us you adored Penélope. He loves you very much, too, and thinks of you every day, you know. If he doesn't come more often, it's just because the new bishop, who is a social climber, loads him with such a quota of masses that his voice gives out.”

“Are you sure you eat enough?” the old lady suddenly asked, with a worried expression.

“I eat like a horse, Jacinta. The trouble is, I have a very manly metabolism and I burn it all up. But believe me, under these clothes it's all pure muscle. Feel, feel. Like Charles Atlas, only hairier.”

Jacinta nodded and looked reassured. She couldn't take her eyes off Fermín. She had forgotten about me completely.

“What can you tell us about Penélope and Julián?”

“Between them all, they took her from me,” she said. “My girl.”

I took a step forward and was about to say something, but Fermín threw me a look that told me to remain silent.

“Who took Penélope from you, Jacinta? Do you remember?”

“The master,” she said, raising her eyes fearfully, as if she thought someone might hear us.

Fermín seemed to be gauging the emphasis of the old woman's gesture and followed her eyes to the ceiling, weighing up possibilities.

“Are you referring to God Almighty, emperor of the heavens, or did you mean the master, the father of Miss Penélope, Don Ricardo?”

“How's Fernando?” asked the old woman.

“The priest? Splendid. When we least expect it, he'll be made pope and will set you up in the Sistine Chapel. He sends you all the best.”

“He's the only one who comes to see me, you know. He comes because he knows I don't have anyone else.”

Fermín gave me a sidelong look, as if he were thinking what I was thinking. Jacinta Coronado was much saner than her appearance suggested. Her body was fading away, but her mind and her soul were still blazing with anguish in that place of wretchedness. I wondered how many more people like her, or like the lusty little old man who had shown us how to find her, were trapped in there.

“He comes because he's very fond of you, Jacinta. Because he remembers how well you looked after him and how you fed him when he was a child. He's told us all about that. Do you remember, Jacinta? Do you remember those days, when you went to collect Jorge from school, do you remember Fernando and Julián?”

“Julián…”

She dragged out that whispered word, but her smile betrayed her.

“Do you remember Julián Carax, Jacinta?”

“I remember the day Penélope told me she was going to marry him….”

Fermín and I looked at each other in astonishment.

“Marry? When was that, Jacinta?”

“The day she saw him for the first time. She was thirteen and didn't know who he was or what he was called.”

“Then how did she know she was going to marry him?”

“Because she'd seen him. In dreams.”

 

As a child, María Jacinta Coronado was convinced that the world ended on the outskirts of Toledo and that beyond the town limits there was nothing but darkness and oceans of fire. Jacinta had got that idea from a dream she had during a fever that had almost killed her when she was four years old. The dreams began with that mysterious fever, which some blamed on the sting of a huge red scorpion that appeared in the house one day and was never seen again, and others on the evil designs of a mad nun who crept into houses at night to poison children and who, years later, was to be garroted reciting the Lord's Prayer backward with her eyes popping out of their sockets, while a red cloud spread over the town and discharged a storm of dead cockroaches. In her dreams Jacinta perceived the past and the future and, at times, saw revealed to her the secrets and mysteries of the old streets of Toledo. One of the characters she would see repeatedly in her dreams was someone called Zacarías, an angel who was always dressed in black and who was accompanied by a dark cat with yellow eyes whose breath smelled of sulfur. Zacarías knew everything: he had predicted the day and the hour of her uncle Benancio's death—the hawker of ointments and holy water. He had revealed the place where her mother, a sanctimonious churchgoer, hid a bundle of letters from an ardent medical student with few financial resources but a solid knowledge of anatomy, and in whose bedroom in the alleyway of Santa María she had discovered the doors of paradise in advance. Zacarías had announced to Jacinta that there was something evil fixed in her stomach, a dead spirit that wished her ill, and that she would know the love of only one man: an empty, selfish love that would break her soul in two. He had augured that in her lifetime she would behold the death of everything she most loved, and that before she reached heaven, she would visit hell. On the day of her first period, Zacarías and his sulfuric cat disappeared from her dreams, but years later Jacinta would remember the visits of the black angel with tears in her eyes, because all his prophecies had come true.

So when the doctors diagnosed that she would never be able to have children, Jacinta wasn't surprised. Nor was she surprised, although she almost died of grief, when her husband of three years announced that he was going to leave her because she was like a wasteland that produced no fruit, because she wasn't a woman. In the absence of Zacarías (whom she took for an emissary of the heavens, for, whether or not he was dressed in black, he was still a luminous angel and the best-looking man she had ever seen or dreamed of ), Jacinta spoke to God on her own, hiding in corners, without seeing Him or expecting Him to bother with a reply, because there was a lot of pain in the world and her troubles were, in the end, only small matters. All her monologues with God dealt with the same theme: she wanted only one thing in life, to be a mother, to be a woman.

One day, while she was praying in the cathedral, a man, whom she recognized as Zacarías, came up to her. He was dressed as he always was 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 a man (which, judging from the three years of bedroom experience 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 moon 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 Zacarías's visit had been another of her dreams or whether the angel had really 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 with 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, who claimed not to know the angel Zacarías among the winged legions of the heavens, listened attentively to Jacinta's vision. After much consideration of the matter, 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 hardships passed 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 palaces, full of factories that poured forth a foggy breath, poisoning the skin with coal and sulfur. 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 pensión 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 Zacarías had deceived her, that she had come to that terrible city to die of cold, of misery and oblivion.

Jacinta was prepared to survive. She went to the store every day before dawn and did not come out 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 Zacarías 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 around 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 deepsea fish that thrashed their tails in the fish market. Years later the young woman would reveal this vision to an eighteen-year-old Julián Carax, recalling how the day she left the pensión 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 pensión came to blows, shouting and scratching over the meager 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. She herself had never learned to read.