The Angel's Game (11 page)

17

Nine weeks later I was standing in front of number 17, Plaza de Cataluña, where the Catalonia bookshop had opened its doors two years earlier. I was staring in amazement at what seemed to be an endless display filled with copies of a novel called
The House of Ashes
by Pedro Vidal. I smiled to myself. My mentor had even used the title I had suggested to him years before when I had given him the idea for the story. I decided to go in and ask for a copy. I opened it at random and began to reread passages I knew by heart, for I had only finished going over them a couple of months earlier. I didn’t find a single word in the whole book that I hadn’t put there myself, except for the dedication: ‘For Cristina Sagnier, without whom . . .’

When I handed the book back to the shop assistant he told me not to think twice about buying it.

‘We received it two days ago and I’ve already read it,’ he added. ‘A great novel. Take my advice and buy it now. I know the papers are praising it to the skies and that’s usually a bad sign, but in this case it’s the exception that proves the rule. If you don’t like it, bring it to me and I’ll give you your money back.’

‘Thanks,’ I replied. Knowing what I knew his recommendation was flattering. ‘But I’ve read it too.’

‘May I interest you in something else?’

‘You don’t have a novel called
The Steps of Heaven
?’

The bookseller thought for a moment.

‘That’s the one by Martín, isn’t it? I heard a rumour he also wrote
City
. . .’

I nodded.

‘I’ve asked for it, but the publishers haven’t sent me any copies. Let me have a good look.’

I followed him to the counter, where he consulted one of his colleagues, who shook his head.

‘It was meant to arrive yesterday, but the publisher says he has no copies. I’m sorry. If you like, I’ll reserve one for you when we get them . . .’

‘Don’t worry. I’ll come back another day. And thank you very much.’

‘I’m sorry, sir. I don’t know what can have happened. As I say, I should have had it . . .’

When I left the bookshop I went over to a newspaper stand at the top of the Ramblas. There I bought a copy of every newspaper, from
La Vanguardia
to
The Voice of Industry
. I sat down in the Canaletas Café and began delving into their pages. Each paper carried a review of the novel I had written for Vidal, full page, with large headlines and a portrait of Don Pedro looking meditative and mysterious, wearing a new suit and puffing on a pipe with studied disdain. I began to read the headlines and then the first and last paragraphs of the reviews.

The first one I found opened with these words: ‘
The House of Ashes
is a mature, rich work of great quality which takes its place among the best examples of contemporary literature.’ Another paper informed the reader that ‘nobody in Spain writes better than Pedro Vidal, our most respected and noteworthy novelist’, and a third asserted that this was a ‘superlative novel, of masterful craftsmanship and exquisite quality’. A fourth newspaper summed up the great international success of Vidal and his work: ‘Europe bows to the master’ (although the novel had only come out two days earlier in Spain and, were it to be translated, wouldn’t appear in any other country for at least a year). The piece then went into a long-winded ramble about the great international acclaim and huge respect that Vidal’s name aroused among ‘the most famous international experts’, even though, as far as I knew, none of his other books had been translated into any language, except for a novel whose translation into French he himself had financed and which had only sold a hundred and twenty-six copies. Miracles aside, the consensus of the press was that ‘a classic has been born’, and that the novel marked ‘the return of one of the greats, the best pen of our times: Vidal, undisputed master’.

On the opposite page in some of those papers, covering a far more modest space of one or two columns, I also found a few reviews of a novel by someone called David Martín. The most favourable began like this: ‘A first novel, written in a pedestrian style,
The Steps of Heaven
, by the novice David Martín, shows the author’s lack of skill and talent from the very first page.’ The last review I could bring myself to read, published in
The Voice of Industry
, opened succinctly with a short introduction in bold letters that stated: ‘David Martín, a completely unknown author, and writer of classified advertisements, surprises us with what is perhaps this year’s worst literary debut.’

I left the newspapers and the coffee I had ordered on the table and made my way down the Ramblas to the offices of Barrido & Escobillas. On the way I passed four or five bookshops, all of which were decorated with countless copies of Vidal’s novel. In none did I see a single copy of mine. My experience in the Catalonia bookshop was repeated in each place.

‘I’m sorry, I don’t know what can have happened. It was meant to arrive the day before yesterday, but the publisher says he’s run out of stock and doesn’t know when he’ll be reprinting. If you’d care to leave me your name and a telephone number, I can let you know if it arrives . . . Have you asked in Catalonia? Well, if they don’t have it . . .’

The two partners received me with grim, unfriendly expressions: Barrido, behind his desk, stroking a fountain pen, and Escobillas, standing behind him, boring through me with his eyes. Lady Venom, who sat on a chair next to me, was licking her lips with anticipation.

‘I can’t tell you how sorry I am, my dear Martín,’ Barrido was explaining. ‘The problem is as follows. The booksellers place their orders based on the reviews that appear in the papers - don’t ask me why. If you go into the warehouse next door you’ll see that we have three thousand copies of your novel just lying there.’

‘With all the expense and the loss which that entails,’ Escobillas completed in a clearly hostile tone.

‘I stopped by the warehouse before coming here and I saw for myself that there were three hundred copies. The manager told me that’s all they printed.’

‘That’s a lie,’ Escobillas proclaimed.

Barrido interrupted him in a conciliatory tone.

‘Please excuse my partner, Martín. You must understand that we’re just as indignant as you, or even more so, about the disgraceful treatment the press has given a book with which all of us at the firm were so in love. But I beg you to understand that, despite our faith in your talent, our hands are tied because of all the confusion created by the malicious press. However, don’t be disheartened. Rome was not built in a day. We’re doing everything in our power to give your work the promotion its estimable literary merit deserves—’

‘With a three-hundred-copy print run.’

Barrido sighed, hurt by my lack of trust.

‘It’s a five-hundred-copy print run,’ Escobillas specified. ‘The other two hundred were collected by Barceló and Sempere in person yesterday. The rest will go out with our next delivery; they couldn’t go out with this one because there were too many new titles. If you bothered to understand our problems and weren’t so selfish you would recognise this.’

I looked at the three of them in disbelief.

‘Don’t tell me you’re not going to do anything.’

Barrido gave me a mournful look.

‘And what would you have us do, my friend? We have bet everything on you. Try to help us a little.’

‘If only you’d written a book like the one your friend Vidal has written,’ said Escobillas.

‘Now that was one hell of a novel,’ Barrido asserted. ‘Even
The Voice of Industry
says so.’

‘I knew this was going to happen,’ Escobillas went on. ‘You’re so ungrateful.’

Lady Venom, sitting by my side, was looking at me sadly. I thought she was going to take my hand to comfort me so I quickly moved it away. Barrido gave me one of his unctuous smiles.

‘Maybe it’s all for the best, Martín. Maybe it’s a sign from Our Lord, who, in his infinite wisdom, wants to show you the way back to the work that has given so much happiness to the readers of
City of the Damned
.’

I burst out laughing. Barrido joined in and, at this signal from him, so did Escobillas and Lady Venom. I watched the choir of hyenas and told myself that, under other circumstances, this would have seemed a moment of delicious irony.

‘That’s better. I like to see you handling this with a positive attitude,’ Barrido proclaimed. ‘What do you say? When will we have the next instalment by Ignatius B. Samson?’

The three of them looked at me expectantly. I cleared my throat so I could speak clearly and smiled at them.

‘You can go screw yourselves.’

18

On leaving, I wandered aimlessly for hours round the streets of Barcelona. I was finding it difficult to breathe, as if something were pressing down on my chest. A cold sweat covered my forehead and hands. When evening fell, not knowing where else to hide, I started to make my way back home. As I passed Sempere & Sons, I saw the bookseller filling his shop window with copies of my novel. It was already late and the shop was closed, but the light was still on. I tried to rush past, but Sempere noticed me and smiled with a sadness that I had never seen on his face before. He went over to the door and opened it.

‘Come in for a while, Martín.’

‘Some other day, Señor Sempere.’

‘Do it for me.’

He took me by the arm and dragged me into the bookshop. I followed him to the back room and he offered me a chair. He poured two glasses of something that looked thicker than tar and motioned to me to down it in one, as he did.

‘I’ve been glancing through Vidal’s book,’ he said.

‘This season’s success story,’ I pointed out.

‘Does he know you’ve written it?’

‘What does it matter?’ I said, shrugging my shoulders.

Sempere looked at me the same way he’d looked at that eight-year-old boy who had come to his house one distant day with a bruised face and broken teeth.

‘Are you all right, Martín?’

‘I’m fine.’

Sempere shook his head, muttering to himself, and got up to take something from one of the shelves. It was a copy of my novel. He handed it to me with a pen and smiled.

‘Please sign it for me.’

When I’d finished writing something for him, Sempere took the book from my hands and placed it carefully in the glass case behind the counter where he displayed first editions that were not for sale. It was his private shrine.

‘You don’t have to do that, Señor Sempere,’ I mumbled.

‘I’m doing it because I want to and because the occasion demands it. This book is a piece of your heart, Martín. And it is also a piece of my heart, for the small part I played in it. I’ll place you between
Le Père Goriot
and
L’Éducation Sentimentale
.’

‘That’s a sacrilege.’

‘Nonsense. It’s one of the best books I’ve sold in the last ten years, and I’ve sold a lot,’ old Sempere said.

Sempere’s kind words could only scratch the surface of the cold, impenetrable calm that was beginning to invade me. I ambled back to my house, in no hurry.

When I walked into the tower house I poured myself a glass of water. As I drank it in the kitchen, in the dark, I burst out laughing.

The following morning I received two courtesy calls. The first one was from Pep, Vidal’s new chauffeur. He was bringing a message from his boss, summoning me to a lunch at La Maison Dorée - doubtless the celebration he had promised me some time ago. Pep seemed a little stiff and anxious to leave as soon as possible. The air of complicity he’d once had with me had evaporated. He wouldn’t come in, preferring to wait on the landing. Without looking straight at me, he handed me Vidal’s written message, and as soon as I told him I would go to the lunch, he left without saying goodbye.

The second visit, half an hour later, brought my two publishers to my door, accompanied by a forbidding-looking gentleman with piercing eyes who identified himself as a lawyer. The formidable trio arrived displaying a mixture of mourning and belligerence, leaving me in no doubt as to the purpose of the occasion. I invited them into the gallery, where they proceeded to sit down on the sofa, lined up from left to right in descending order of height.

‘May I offer you anything? A small glass of cyanide?’

I was not expecting a smile and I didn’t get one. After a brief preamble from Barrido concerning the terrible losses that the fiasco associated with the failure of
The Steps of Heaven
was going to cause the publishing house, the lawyer went on to give a brief exposition which, in plain language, said that if I didn’t return to my work in the guise of Ignatius B. Samson and hand in a manuscript for the
City of the Damned
series within a month and a half, they would proceed to sue me for breach of contract, damages and five or six other legal terms that escaped me because by then I wasn’t paying attention. It was not all bad news. Despite the aggravations caused by my behaviour, Barrido and Escobillas had found a pearl of generosity in their hearts with which to smooth away our differences and establish a new alliance, a friendship, which would benefit both sides.

‘If you want, you can buy all the copies of
The Steps of Heaven
that haven’t been distributed at a special rate of 75 per cent of the cover price, since there is clearly no demand for the title and it will be impossible for us to include it in our next delivery,’ Escobillas explained.

‘Why don’t you give me back my rights? After all, you didn’t pay a penny for the book and you’re not planning on trying to sell a single copy.’

‘We can’t do that, dear friend,’ Barrido pointed out. ‘Even if no advance materialised in front of you personally, the edition has required a huge outlay and the agreement you signed with us was for twenty years, automatically renewable under the same terms if our firm decides to exercise its rights. You have to understand that we are also entitled to something. The author can’t get everything.’

When he had finished his speech I invited the gentlemen to make their way to the exit, either willingly or with the help of a kick - they could choose. Before I slammed the door in their faces, Escobillas was good enough to cast me one of his evil-eyed looks.

‘We demand a reply within a week, or that will be the end of you,’ he muttered.

‘In a week you and that idiot partner of yours will be dead,’ I replied calmly, without quite knowing why I’d uttered those words.

I spent the rest of the morning staring at the walls, until the bells of Santa María reminded me that it would soon be time for my meeting with Pedro Vidal.

He was waiting for me at the best table in the room, toying with a glass of white wine and listening to the pianist, who was playing with velvet fingers a piece by Granados. When he saw me, he stood up and held out his hand.

‘Congratulations,’ I said

Vidal smiled, waiting for me to sit down before sitting down himself. We let a minute of silence go by, cocooned by the music and the glances of the distinguished people who greeted Vidal from afar or came up to the table to congratulate him on his success, which was the talk of the town.

‘David, you can’t imagine how sorry I am about what has happened,’ he began.

‘Don’t be sorry, enjoy it.’

‘Do you think this means anything to me? The flattery of a few poor devils? My greatest joy would have been to see you succeed.’

‘I’m sorry I’ve let you down once again, Don Pedro.’

Vidal sighed.

‘David, it’s not my fault if they’ve gone for you. It’s your fault. You were crying out for it. You’re quite old enough to know how these things work.’

‘You tell me.’

Vidal clicked his tongue, as if my naivety offended him.

‘What did you expect? You’re not one of them. You never will be. You haven’t wanted to be, and you think they’re going to forgive you. You lock yourself up in that great rambling house and you think you can survive without joining the church choir and putting on the uniform. Well you’re wrong, David. You’ve always been wrong. This isn’t how you play the game. If you want to play alone, pack your bags and go somewhere where you can be in charge of your own destiny, if such a place exists. But if you stay here, you’d better join some parish or other - any one will do. It’s that simple.’

‘Is that what you do, Don Pedro? Join the parish?’

‘I don’t have to, David. I feed them. That’s another thing you’ve never understood.’

‘You’d be surprised at how quickly I’m learning. But don’t worry, the reviews are the least of it. For better or for worse, tomorrow nobody will remember them, neither mine nor yours.’

‘What’s the problem, then?’

‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘Is it those two sons-of-bitches? Barrido and the corpse-robber?’

‘Forget it, Don Pedro. As you say, it’s my fault. Nobody else’s.’

The head waiter came over to the table with an enquiring look. I hadn’t laid eyes on the menu and wasn’t going to.

‘The usual, for both of us,’ Vidal told him.

The head waiter left with a bow. Vidal was observing me as if I were a dangerous animal locked in a cage.

‘Cristina was unable to come,’ he said. ‘I brought this, so you could sign it for her.’

He put on the table a copy of
The Steps of Heaven
wrapped in purple paper with the Sempere & Sons stamp on it, and pushed it towards me. I made no move to pick it up. Vidal had gone pale. After his forceful remarks and his defensive tone, his manner seemed to have changed. Here comes the final thrust, I thought.

‘Tell me once and for all whatever it is you want to say, Don Pedro. I won’t bite.’

Vidal downed his wine in one gulp.

‘There are two things I’ve been wanting to tell you. You’re not going to like them.’

‘I’m beginning to get used to that.’

‘One is to do with your father.’

The bitter smile left my lips.

‘I’ve wanted to tell you for years, but I thought it wouldn’t do you any good. You’re going to think I didn’t tell you out of cowardice, but I swear, I swear on anything you hold sacred, that—’

‘That what?’ I cut in.

Vidal sighed.

‘The night your father died—’

‘The night he was murdered,’ I corrected him icily.

‘It was a mistake. Your father’s death was a mistake.’

I looked at him, confused.

‘Those men were not out to get him. They made a mistake.’

I recalled the look in the three gunmen’s eyes, in the fog, the smell of gunpowder and my father’s dark blood pouring through my hands.

‘The person they wanted to kill was me,’ said Vidal almost inaudibly. ‘An old partner of my father’s discovered that his wife and I . . .’

I closed my eyes and listened to a morbid laughter rising up inside me. My father had been riddled with bullets because of one of the great Pedro Vidal’s bits of skirt.

‘Please say something,’ Vidal pleaded.

I opened my eyes.

‘What is the second thing you were going to tell me?’

I’d never seen Vidal look so frightened. It suited him.

‘I’ve asked Cristina to marry me.’

A long silence.

‘She said yes.’

Vidal looked down. One of the waiters came over with the starters. He left them on the table, wishing us bon appétit
.
Vidal did not dare look at me again. The starters were getting cold. After a while I took the copy of
The Steps of Heaven
and left.

That afternoon, after leaving La Maison Dorée, I found myself making my way down the Ramblas, carrying the copy of
The Steps of Heaven
. As I drew closer to the corner with Calle del Carmen my hands began to shake. I stopped by the window of the Bagués jewellery shop, pretending to be looking at some gold lockets in the shape of fairies and flowers, dotted with rubies. The baroque and ornate facade of El Indio was just a few metres away; anyone would have thought it was a grand bazaar full of wonders and extraordinary objects, not just a shop selling fabrics and linen. I approached the store slowly and stepped into the entrance hall that led to the main door. I knew she wouldn’t recognise me, that I might not recognise her, but even so I stood there for about five minutes before daring to go in. When I did, my heart was beating hard and my hands were sweating.

The walls were lined with shelves full of large rolls of fabric of all types. Shop assistants, armed with tape measures and special scissors tied to their belts, spread the beautiful textiles on the tables and displayed them as if they were precious jewels to well-bred ladies, who were accompanied by their maids and seamstresses.

‘Can I help you, sir?’

The words came from a heavily built man with a high-pitched voice, dressed in a flannel suit that looked as if it was about to burst at the seams and fill the shop with floating shreds of cloth. He observed me with a condescending air and a smile midway between forced and hostile.

‘No,’ I mumbled.

Then I saw her. My mother was coming down a stepladder holding a handful of remnants. She wore a white blouse and I recognised her instantly. Her figure had grown a little fuller and her face, less well-chiselled than it used to be, had that slightly defeated expression that comes with routine and disappointment. The shop assistant was annoyed and kept talking to me, but I hardly heard his voice. I only saw her drawing closer, then walking past me. She looked at me for a second, and when she saw that I was watching her, she smiled meekly, the way one smiles at a customer or at one’s boss, and then continued with her work. I had such a lump in my throat that I almost wasn’t able to open my mouth to silence the assistant and I hurried off towards the exit, my eyes full of tears. Once I was outside I crossed over the street and went into a café. I sat at a table by the window from which I could see the door of El Indio, and I waited.

Almost an hour and a half had gone by when I saw the shop assistant who had tried to serve me come out and lower the entrance shutter. Soon afterwards the lights started to go out and some of the staff emerged. I got up and went outside. A boy of about ten was sitting by the entrance to the next-door building, looking at me. I beckoned him to come closer, and when he did so, I showed him a coin. He gave me a huge smile - I noticed he was missing a number of teeth.

‘See this packet? I want you to give it to a lady who is about to come out right now. Tell her that a gentleman asked you to give it to her, but don’t tell her it was me. Understood?’

The boy nodded. I gave him the coin and the book.

‘Now we’ll wait.’

We didn’t have to wait long. Three minutes later I saw her coming out. She was heading for the Ramblas.

‘It’s that lady, see?’

My mother stopped for a moment by the portico of the church of Belén and I made a sign to the boy, who ran after her. I watched the scene from a short distance away, but could not hear her words. The boy handed her the packet and she gave it a puzzled look, not sure whether to accept it or not. The boy insisted and finally she took the parcel in her hands and watched the boy run away. Disconcerted, she turned to right and left, searching with her eyes. She weighed up the packet, examining the purple wrapping paper. Finally curiosity got the better of her and she opened it.