The Master of the Prado

by Javier Sierra

  He interrupted me, “No need to apologize. It doesn’t matter. Listen—I called you because this morning I discovered something very serious. Something that, one way or another, concerns you.”

  For a moment I was unsure what to say.

  “Javier,” he continued, and I heard him swallow. “Do you remember what you asked me to look for in the library?”

  “Umm,” I hesitated.

  “I’ve come across something very strange, Javier, and I mean really very strange. I don’t want to discuss it over the telephone. I’ll be waiting for you here at exactly nine o’clock tomorrow morning, in front of the monastery’s main entrance. You know where that is, next to the student residence. All right?”

  “Bu . . . but . . .” I tried to protest.

  “Make sure you’re there. It’s important.” And he hung up.

  Heart racing, the very next thing I did was to return Marina’s calls. She had never left me two messages like that before, so I knew it must be something important.

  “Javier! Thank God you called,” she said as soon as she heard my voice. She sounded just as scared as she had on the day that I’d met her at her lecture hall, though there was also something else—a certain tone, a certain tension—that was new.

  “What is it, Marina?”

  “It’s what I told you,” she burst out. “You have to stop!” She sounded even more nervous than I was. “Don’t you get it? You have to quit! Forget all about your Prado Master!”

  I was stunned; I didn’t know what to say.

  “Listen,” she went on. “My parents got back from their trip last night and when they heard about that guy’s visit they were really mad!”

  “Wait a minute,” I stopped her, amazed. “You told them about that?”

  “Aunt Esther mentioned that we’d been sleeping at her house because of how scared we were, and then my sister told them everything today at lunch. They can’t believe we let this dangerous lunatic into their house, Javi, and they say that it’s all your fault!”

  “It doesn’t matter, Marina,” I said. “The important thing is whether you—”

  “I’ve had it, Javier. I’m finished.”

  “What . . . what are you saying, Marina?”

  “I liked coming along with you, Javier, seeing El Escorial, and being with you while you did your . . . investigating, or whatever. But it’s not fun anymore, not at all. Now it seems really dangerous.”

  I didn’t know how to reply. There was something about the last thing she’d said that I must have missed.

  “Marina,” I stammered, “I don’t understand.”

  “Wait a minute,” she said. “Here’s my dad.”

  She put down the receiver for a moment as a wave of heat washed over my face. Her dad?

  “Javier Sierra?” The voice sounded ominous, with the stern tone of a teacher giving an exam. “I’m Thomas Sanchez, Marina’s father.”

  “How are you, sir?”

  “I want you to listen carefully to what I’m about to say to you,” he went on severely, not giving me a chance to say anything. “Marina and her sister, Sonia, were put in a very dangerous situation. I don’t know if you understand exactly what happened. This man came into our house, taking advantage of the fact that we were away. He sat at our family’s kitchen table! He threatened the girls, and he could have hurt them!”

  “But—”

  “I’m not done!” He was checking himself, trying not to yell at me. “You’ve exposed not just Marina but our whole family to danger. We don’t know if he’ll come back or even if he’s watching us or the girls right now. We’re seriously considering whether we should file a complaint against you with the police.”

  “The police? Against me?”

  “As an accessory.”

  I went pale.

  “Sir, I—”

  “Listen to me, Javier; I’m only going to say this once. You are not to go near Marina. Ever. If you so much as call her, or if I get even a hint that you’ve tried to see her or involve her in whatever it is you’re up to, I swear . . . I will press charges, you understand me? I will not quit until your life is ruined!”

  “Papa!” I heard Marina cry out in the background amid some commotion. I waited a few more seconds, expecting one of them to say something else, but the line went dead. I stayed like that for a while, motionless, with the phone against my ear. My blood felt cold in my veins as I waited for someone to explain to me what had just happened. No one did.

  As it turned out, that was the last I would hear of Marina for a long, long time.

  The next morning, Saturday, at eight-fifty, with the remains of the last snow still on the cobblestone path leading to the El Escorial monastery, I turned and walked up to the main entrance. What else could I do? I had decided only days before just to let events carry me along and let fate—or whatever else it might be—determine my path. This seemed like a perfect opportunity to test my new faith. Was I wrong? Was it a good idea to experiment like this? Unfortunately, I couldn’t be sure. I was alone, I hadn’t eaten, and I was in the worst funk. Between the early morning and the news on the car radio, I had no appetite. All around me the world was falling into chaos.

  The UN Secretary General, Javier Pérez de Cuellar, was meeting that very day with Saddam Hussein’s envoy to demand that Iraq withdraw its troops from Kuwait. The Americans were beating the war drums, and as if that wasn’t enough, our prime minister Felipe Gonzalez had just ordered Spanish troops to prepare to support an eventual allied invasion of Iraq.

  And in the middle of this collective madness a young journalism student being buffeted in all directions, some Master who had appeared from God knows where, a father aggressively guarding his daughter’s safety, a sinister kind of art policeman, and now an old Augustinian from the El Escorial library who had something urgent to tell me. It was all far too strange. I felt like I was in a whirlpool that was threatening to overwhelm me. However, there wasn’t much I could do about it. Whatever path I was on, there was no going back.

  I rubbed my eyes with my gloved hands and tried to concentrate on what had brought me here. I was happy not to be entirely alone. An intermittent flow of people—caretakers, security guards, staff, and even the odd early morning tourist—were all trying earnestly to negotiate the icy paving stones and get to the main door in one piece. I decided to follow their example and pick my way carefully to the rendezvous point I’d arranged with Father Juan Luis.

  At that hour, the place was particularly imposing. Its bearing, its solemnity, the silence broken only by the echo of visitors’ footsteps and the overall impression of gravity and perfection conveyed by the majesty of those great walls, all announced that this was not just any other monument. Nor was it. Those vast façades that Philip II had built hid 2,673 windows, 88 fountains, 540 frescoes, 1,600 paintings, and more than 45,000 books. Those numbers, burned into my memory over numerous tours, made my head swim. El Escorial had always held a fascination for me, and I had visited it whenever I could. I was familiar with its legends, and I could well imagine it hiding any number of answers to the arcanon of the Prado.

  But what did Father Juan Luis want to tell me? And why not over the phone? Had he uncovered some new clue to The New Apocalypse? Another angelic prophecy, perhaps?

  I had no inkling of the dramatic turn that events were about to take.

  At exactly nine o’clock, as precise as a Swiss watch, Father Juan Luis appeared in the doorway of the Alfonso XII residence. He was impossible to miss. Stooped, his black robes fastened at the front and without a coat, he made his way slowly down long side of the building toward the main entrance, not even pausing to glance around him. If he was really on his way to meet me at the main door, he was doing a good job of hiding it.

  I headed in his direction and intercepted him partway.

  “Good morning, Father,” I began, reaching for his arm. “Is this a good time to—?”

  Feeling my touch on his bony shoulder, he jumped. “What
the devil!” he exclaimed. “You gave me a fright!”

  “Just like the one you gave me last night,” I replied with a smile.

  He understood immediately, or so it seemed. No one observing us at that moment would have suspected that our meeting had not been accidental.

  “Fair enough, fair enough . . .” He gave me a quick wink before lowering his voice and saying, “I’m very glad you’re here. Are you alone?”

  “Marina wasn’t able to make it,” I lied. “I hope that’s okay.”

  He opened his hands as if to say “What can you do?” and then shot a glance around him with a wariness that reminded me of the Master. Why was it that everyone I spoke to ended up feeling as if they were being watched?

  Turning back to me, he whispered, “I think it’s better if we first talk out here, all right?”

  I nodded, somewhat rattled.

  “Excellent. Now, when we go into the library and I show you what I’ve found, keep quiet; don’t say a word. Don’t ask any questions. I won’t talk either, understand? If they were to hear us, I’d be locked up as crazy, and you . . . well, I have no idea what they would do to you.”

  “Are you sure you want to talk out here, though? With this cold? You don’t even have a scarf.”

  “Let’s walk!” he replied.

  Then the monk took my arm so that he wouldn’t slip, and together we began to traverse the fifty or so yards between us and the monastery entrance. Neither my shivering nor my attempts to speed up did any good. Oblivious to my discomfort, Father Juan Luis began to talk in a voice so slow and halting that I had to incline my head toward his to hear what he was saying.

  “—that I should have noticed sooner,” he finished.

  “Noticed what, Father?” I interrupted, lost.

  “The dates, Javier! The dates!” he scolded. “When you asked me to check who had shown an interest in The New Apocalypse before your visit, remember? I checked the register and noticed something interesting in our records.”

  Hearing the name of that prophetic work once again, I leaned even closer.

  “At first I didn’t think it was anything. I assumed that it was just a mistake. But then this week I finally had a chance to go back to it and I got a big surprise!”

  “What happened?” I asked him.

  The monk sighed. “All right, now, Javier, listen carefully. The register for access to the Blessed Amadeo text couldn’t be clearer. In the whole of last year, no one—absolutely no one—requested access to the book, until you and that other investigator who was there just before you.”

  “Julian de Prada,” I interjected.

  His eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Yes, exactly. I didn’t realize that you knew him.”

  “I don’t, much. Marina and I met him in Madrid after we talked to you. But please, go on.”

  “Well, here comes the strangest part, Javier. It intrigued me that a book like that—beautifully bound, with glorious calligraphy—had so few requests to view it, so I went back through the register to see: 1989, 1988, 1987, and nothing! It’s incredible! No one seems to have cared a whit about The New Apocalypse for a long time. And then I was really disturbed when I decided to check the archives going all the way back to the 1970s, and again—nothing! Not even an internal request.”

  “So there’s nothing for twenty years and then two in a row?”

  “Very suspicious, don’t you think?”

  “Very,” I agreed.

  “You have to realize that each year this library receives many unusual requests. With the kind of archive we have here, unique in many respects, we get scholars from all corners of the world. One of the most frequent requests that we get, for example, is for the Enchiridion that belonged to Pope Leo III, and that he presented to Charlemagne as a gift. From then until his death, it granted him happiness, protection, and many military victories, as it was said to have magical properties. Charles V, his son Philip, and other distant descendants of theirs all sent experts across Europe to track down this extraordinary talisman in parchment. If they ever found it, they did not bring it back here. We also get asked for the signed works of St. Teresa, Alfonso X’s Canticles of Holy Mary, and the Beatus of Liébana.

  “Now, The New Apocalypse is properly listed in our catalog and part of a notable collection. For there not to have been a single request for it in twenty years, and then to have two requests in one week—that just seems too strange.” Father Juan Luis shook his head slowly.

  “Although,” I said, trying to make a case for why this might have happened, “with all the books that you have here, there must be many that remain untouched for centuries!”

  “No, no,” objected Father Juan Luis, “that’s not what’s so odd here. The strangest thing is that the last person before you to request the book did so back in the spring of 1970, and you know what his name was?”

  I frowned and shook my head. How could I know?

  “Julian de Prada!”

  “It can’t be!” I breathed.

  “It’s all down in the register. There’s no question about it. Between the months of April and June of 1970, two men requested Amadeo’s The New Apocalypse three times—Julian de Prada and another man called Luis Fovel. The microfiche is the proof.”

  “Luis Fovel?” I could barely get the words out. For a moment there seemed to be a great distance between us, and I felt the blood drain from my face. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. Do you know him as well?”

  I nodded, feeling apprehensive.

  “How long ago is it since you’ve seen him?”

  The question surprised me. “I saw him just yesterday, Father. Why?”

  I noticed a strange expression cross the monk’s face, and only when I felt his fingers digging into my arm did I realize that it was anxiety.

  He cleared his throat. “Tell me . . . is he very old?”

  I pursed my lips and said, “Well, no more than you, Father.” At which he moaned, seemingly more disturbed still.

  “Just what I feared . . .”

  “What is it, Father?”

  The old librarian took a couple of steps toward the door of the chapel—just enough to get out of the shadows and place himself in the one spot blessed by the rays of the morning sun. After a moment, he spoke. “Yesterday morning, I went back through the library register one more time, and I found something that alarmed me greatly. This is why I called you. You see, between 1952 and 1970 there were no requests at all to see the Beato’s book. But I did find one in 1952, in October, signed by Luis Fovel.”

  “In 1952? That’s forty years ago.”

  The old monk looked at me, swallowed, and nodded. “But that’s not the end. I went to one of the technical kids who are transferring all our old records onto digital, and asked him to search the old archives for any instances of the names Luis Fovel or Julian de Prada. He found something that . . . well, I don’t know what to make of it!”

  “What did he find?”

  “Well,” he turned his face toward the sun and forced a nervous laugh. “The computer trail for Julian de Prada goes cold, but not for Fovel. There are several records for him: in 1949, 1934 . . .” He took a shaky breath. “1918 and 1902. We don’t have any records before that, unfortunately.”

  “It must be a joke, don’t you think, Father?” I objected, very perplexed. “It can’t be that—”

  He cut in. “That’s what I thought, too, young man! Or I thought that they might be related, you know—a grandfather, father and son, all with the same name, coming here through the years, all interested in the same kind of things. Why not? Things like that happen. But there was a problem . . .”

  “What kind of problem?” My voice had gone flat.

  “Yesterday I finally dug up the entry that Fovel signed in 1902. It’s in the oldest register we have. Luckily it’s all on microfiche. And I compared his signature from that with the signature from 1970 . . .” He was actually shaking.

  “What, Father?” I asked, gently
.

  “It’s the same person. Lord above, Javier, I’m not a handwriting expert but I would be willing to swear that it’s the same signature! Do you realize what that means?”

  I took in a huge lungful of cold air. If what the old librarian was saying was true, a man named Luis Fovel had requested a forbidden text from the El Escorial library on and off over the course of almost seventy years. And if it really was the same Fovel that I knew, who looked to be in his sixties, then the Master of the Prado would have to be something like a hundred and ten or a hundred and twenty years old!

  “It’s impossible,” I protested, with all the conviction I could muster. “It has to be a mistake, Father. There just must be an explanation somewhere!”

  “None that I can see.”

  “Could I see the signatures?”

  “Yes, I think you should have a look at them.”

  Ten minutes later, the man who knew the monastery library better than anyone alive was leading me to his small desk to show me his discoveries. Very little had changed since my last visit. It was still the refuge of some wise man or scholar from another time, straight out of the past, without a single computer or other trace of technology, right in the middle of a corridor otherwise filled with people much younger. We all greeted each other, Father Juan Luis grunting a reply.

  He pointed at something, and I then noticed the one new addition to the setting. Resting on a small side table was an enormous metal contraption shaped something like a bell, topped with a series of wheels and levers. Seeing my surprise, the monk muttered, “That’s the new ‘Teepee.’ A relic from the Cold War. The Americans who sold it to us in the seventies said it reminded them of something from the trading posts of the Wild West. Officially, it’s a Recordak MPE-1, the most reliable microfilm reader you can get.”

  Whereupon this monk, who I’d thought to be one of the least technologically-minded people I’d met, proceeded to thread a spool of microfilm expertly through the slots on top, then adjust the tension bars, and flip a switch that lit up the interior of the device. He motioned me to sit before an opening on one side of the reader that held a screen, and as he rummaged in a drawer for his glasses, he ordered, “Now concentrate, young man!”