“But . . . is that legal?”
“Rovira, you’re a cop now. Legal is whatever you say is legal.”
“I don’t know . . .”
“Of course you know. You’re a connoisseur of the policing arts. What you’re lacking is self-confidence.”
Rovira looked dazed. He blinked a few times. “What if I say no?”
“Don’t be like that, just when we’d started to become friends. Because if you refuse, I’m going to have to go and see your father-in-law the captain and tell him I saw you climbing up the wall of the Teresian mothers’ school and jerking off during the break.”
“You wouldn’t do that.”
Alicia fixed her eyes on his.
“Rovira, you haven’t a fucking idea of what I might do.”
The man let out a moan. “You’re evil.”
Alicia pressed her lips together, pretending to sulk. “When I decide to be evil with you, you’ll notice it immediately. Tomorrow, first thing, you’ll be waiting for me opposite the Gran Café, and I’ll tell you what the plan is for the day. Are we clear?”
Rovira seemed to have shrunk a few centimeters during the conversation. He looked at her with pleading eyes. “All this is a joke, isn’t it? You’re laughing at me because I’m new at the job . . .”
Alicia did her best impression of Leandro’s icy look. She shook her head slowly. “It’s not a joke, it’s an order. Don’t fail me. Spain and I are counting on you.”
8
At the dawn of the twentieth century, when money still had a whiff of perfume and large fortunes were not only inherited but also put on display, a modernist palace, born from the troubled romance between the dreams of great craftsmen and the vanity of a tycoon, fell from the heavens and was encased forever in the most improbable enclave of Barcelona’s Belle Époque.
The so-called Casa Pérez Samanillo had been occupying the corner of Calle Balmes and Avenida Diagonal for half a century in the guise of a mirage, or perhaps a warning. Built originally as a family residence at a time when almost all aristocrats were getting rid of such ostentatious abodes, this paean to abundance seemed like a Parisian coral reef, beaming its coppery light over the streets from its French windows, displaying to mere mortals its grand staircases, halls, and crystal chandeliers with no hint of shame. Alicia had always thought of it as a sort of aquarium where one could observe exotic and undreamed-of forms of life through glass panels.
For years this lavish fossil had ceased to be a family home, and more recently it had become the headquarters of the Equestrian Club of Barcelona, one of those unassailable and elegant institutions left to ferment in all great cities, where people with good names can protect themselves against the smell of sweat given off by those on whose shoulders their illustrious ancestors built their fortunes. Leandro, a fine observer of such situations, said that once the business of food and home has been solved, the next thing humans strive for are reasons to feel superior to others, and resources with which to demonstrate that superiority. The club seemed to have been fashioned for that very end, and Alicia suspected that if Leandro hadn’t moved to Madrid years ago, those exquisitely designed halls of fine wood would have provided the perfect stage for her mentor, a residence where he might handle his murky affairs with kid gloves.
Uniformed up to his ears, a footman opened the solemn iron door for her. Inside the foyer stood an illuminated lectern behind which she caught sight of an individual wearing a suit. His face wizened with age, he glanced at her from head to toe a couple of times before granting her a meek smile.
“Good afternoon,” said Alicia. “I’ve arranged to meet Señor Gustavo Barceló here.”
The employee looked down at the notebook on the lectern and pretended to study it for a few moments, lending solemnity to the ritual. “And your name is . . . ?”
“Verónica Larraz.”
“If you’d be so kind as to follow me—”
The receptionist led her through the sumptuous interior of the palace. As she walked by, the members of the club interrupted their conversations to look at her in surprise. Some almost seemed scandalized. This was clearly not a place that was used to receiving female visitors, and more than one patrician seemed to take her presence as an affront to his ancestral masculinity. Alicia merely returned their attentions with a polite smile. At last she was shown into a reading room facing a large window that looked out onto Avenida Diagonal. There, sitting in a plush armchair, sipping a glass of brandy the size of a fish tank, was a gentleman with majestic features and a no less grand mustache, sporting a three-piece suit, complete with two-toned shoes. The receptionist stopped a couple of meters away and broke into a fainthearted smile.
“Don Gustavo? The visitor you were expecting . . .”
Don Gustavo Barceló, honorary chairman of the Barcelona guild of booksellers and a scholar of everything pertaining to the eternal feminine and its most refined manifestations, stood up to receive Alicia warmly with a deferential bow. “Gustavo Barceló, at your service.”
Alicia held out her hand to him, and the bookseller kissed it as he would the hand of a bishop, taking his time and making the most of the moment to look her over properly, probably even noting what size gloves she wore.
“Verónica Larraz,” Alicia introduced herself. “It’s a pleasure.”
“Is Larraz the surname of your collector relative?”
Alicia supposed that Barceló’s employee, Benito, had called him as soon as she’d left the bookshop and told him all about the meeting in minute detail.
“No. Larraz is my married name.”
“I see. Discretion above all. I quite understand. Please, take a seat.”
Alicia sat down in an armchair opposite Barceló and took in the exclusive aristocratic air that emanated from the room’s decor.
“Welcome to the illustrious sanctuary of the nouveaux-riches and of those who have fallen on hard times and marry off their children to them, in order to perpetuate the caste,” remarked Barceló, following her eyes.
“You’re not a full member of the club, then?”
“For years I resisted on grounds of moral hygiene, but in the end circumstances forced me to succumb to the realities of the city and go with the flow.”
“It must have its advantages.”
“It certainly does. You meet people in need of thinning their excessive inherited disposable income on articles they don’t understand or want. It also cures you of any romantic notions you might entertain about the self-appointed elites of this country. And the brandy is superb. Besides, this is a wonderful place for social archaeology. Over a million people live in Barcelona, but when it comes to the crunch, barely four hundred of them hold the keys to every door. This is a city of closed doors where everything depends on who has the key, who the key holder will allow through the door, and on what side of the door one will end up. But I doubt any of this is news to you, Señora Larraz. Is there anything I can offer you, apart from speeches and sermons from an old bookseller?”
Alicia shook her head.
“Of course. No beating around the bush, right?”
“If you wouldn’t mind.”
“On the contrary. Did you bring the book?”
Alicia opened her bag, pulled out the copy of Ariadna and the Scarlet Prince, wrapped in a silk scarf, and handed it to him. Barceló took it with both hands. As soon as his fingers touched the cover, his eyes lit up and a smile of pleasure spread over his lips.
“The Labyrinth of the Spirits . . . ,” he murmured. “I suppose you’re not going to tell me how you obtained it.”
“The owner would rather that was kept secret.”
“I understand. If you’ll allow me . . .”
Don Gustavo opened the book and turned the pages slowly, relishing the finding like a gourmet taking pleasure in a unique and unrepeatable dish. Alicia was beginning to suspect that the old bookseller, lost in the pages of the volume, had forgotten her when he suddenly looked up and threw her a quest
ioning glance.
“Pardon my boldness, Señora Larraz, but I have to admit that I can’t understand why someone—in this case the collector you are representing—would want to get rid of a piece like this.”
“Do you think it would be difficult to find a buyer?”
“Not at all. Give me a phone, and in twenty minutes I’ll present you with at least five offers at the high end, minus my ten percent commission. That’s not the point.”
“And what is the point, Don Gustavo, if you don’t mind my asking?”
Barceló downed his glass of brandy. “The point is whether you really want to sell this piece, Señora Larraz.” Barceló stressed the fictitious surname ironically.
Alicia just smiled timidly. Barceló gave a nod. “There’s no need to reply, nor do you need to give me your real name.”
“My name is Alicia.”
“Did you know that Ariadna, the main character in the series of The Labyrinth of the Spirits, is a homage to another Alice, the Lewis Carroll one with her Wonderland, which in this case is Barcelona?”
Alicia feigned surprise, shaking her head slowly.
“In the first book of the series, Ariadna finds a book of magic spells in the attic of a large old house in Vallvidrera where she lives with her parents until they disappear mysteriously one stormy night. Believing that if she could exorcize a spirit from the shadows, she might be able to find them, Ariadna, without realizing it, opens a door between the real Barcelona and its reverse, the accursed reflection of the city. The City of Mirrors . . . The floor cracks beneath her feet, and Ariadna falls down an interminable spiral staircase into the dark until she reaches that other Barcelona, the labyrinth of the spirits, where she is condemned to wander through the circles of hell built by the Scarlet Prince. There she meets ill-fated souls and tries to save them while she searches for her lost parents.”
“Does Ariadna manage to find her parents and save some of those souls?”
“No, unfortunately she doesn’t. But she tries hard. In her own way she’s a heroine, although her flirtations with the Scarlet Prince also turn her slowly into a dark and perverse reflection of herself—a fallen angel, one might say.”
“It sounds like an uplifting story.”
“It is. Tell me, Alicia, is this what you devote your time to? Descending into hell in search of problems?”
“Why would I want to search for problems?”
“Because, as I imagine you’ve already been told by that dimwit Benito in my employ, not long ago an individual who looked like a butcher from the political police came to the bookshop asking questions similar to the ones you’ve asked, and I have a feeling that you two are acquainted with one another.”
“The individual you’re referring to is called Ricardo Lomana, and you’re on the right path.”
“I’m usually on the right path, miss, however thorny it may turn out to be.”
“What exactly did Lomana ask you?”
“He wanted to know whether anyone had recently bought one of Víctor Mataix’s books, either at auction, as a private purchase, or on the international market.”
“Didn’t he ask you any questions about Víctor Mataix?”
“Señor Lomana didn’t strike me as a great reader, but I got the impression that he knew everything he needed to know about Mataix.”
“And what did you say to him?”
“I gave him the address of a collector who for the last seven years has been buying all the copies of The Labyrinth of the Spirits that were not destroyed in 1939.”
“All the Mataix books in the market have been bought by the same person?”
Barceló nodded. “All but yours.”
“And who is this collector?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’ve just told me you gave Lomana his address.”
“I gave him the address of the lawyer who represents him and carries out all the transactions in his name. His name is Brians—Fernando Brians.”
“Have you spoken to this lawyer Brians, Don Gustavo?”
“I must have spoken to him once or twice, at the most. On the phone. A serious man.”
“About matters connected to Víctor Mataix, Don Gustavo?”
Barceló nodded.
“What can you tell me about Víctor Mataix, Don Gustavo?”
“Very little. I know he often worked as an illustrator, that he’d published various novels with those scoundrels Barrido and Escobillas before he started to work on the Labyrinth books, and that he lived as a recluse in a house on Carretera de las Aguas, between Vallvidrera and the Fabra observatory, because his wife suffered from some strange disease and he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, leave her alone. Not much else. That and the fact that he disappeared in 1939, after the Nacionales entered Barcelona.”
“Where could I find out more about him?”
“It’s difficult. The only person I can think of who could help you is Vilajuana. Sergio Vilajuana, a journalist and writer who knew Mataix. He’s a regular customer at the bookshop and the person who knows most about the subject. I remember hearing someone say that Vilajuana was working on a book about Mataix and the whole doomed generation of Barcelona writers who vanished after the war—”
“You mean there are more?”
“Doomed writers? It’s a local specialty, like allioli.”
“And where can I find Señor Vilajuana?”
“Try the newsroom of La Vanguardia. But if you’ll allow me a bit of advice, you’d better come up with a better story than your secret collector. Vilajuana wasn’t born yesterday.”
“What would you suggest?”
“Tempt him.”
Alicia smiled mischievously.
“With the book. If he’s still interested in Mataix, I don’t think he’ll be able to resist having a look at this copy. These days it’s almost as difficult to find a Mataix as it is to find a decent person in an important post.”
“Thank you, Don Gustavo. You’ve been a great help. May I ask you to keep this conversation between us?”
“Of course. Keeping secrets is what keeps me young. That and expensive brandy.”
Alicia wrapped the book in the silk scarf again and put it back in her bag. While she was at it, she pulled out her lipstick and shaped her smile as if she were alone, a spectacle that Barceló watched with fascination and delight.
“How does that look?”
“Very distinguished.”
She stood up and put on her coat.
“Who are you, Alicia?”
“A fallen angel,” she replied, holding out her hand and winking.
“Then you’ve come to the right place.”
Don Gustavo Barceló shook her hand and watched her walk away. He settled back in his large armchair, holding his almost empty brandy glass, lost in thought. Minutes later he saw her walking past the large window. The evening had spread a blanket of crimson clouds over Barcelona, and the setting sun traced the figures of passersby on the pavements of Avenida Diagonal and made the cars shine like red-hot metal tears. Barceló fixed his gaze on that receding red coat until Alicia seemed to evaporate into the shadows of the city.
9
That afternoon, after leaving Barceló in the company of fine brandy and finer suspicions, Alicia walked straight down Rambla de Cataluña on her way home, revisiting the parade of elegant shops that were already lighting up their windows. She remembered the days when she had learned to look at those emporiums and their respectable, stylish clientele with envy and mistrust.
She remembered the times she had gone in to steal, and what she had taken, and the shouts of the manager and customers behind her, the fire in her veins when she realized she was being pursued and the sweet taste of revenge and justice after seizing something from people who thought it belonged to them by divine right. She remembered the day her pillaging career ended in a dark, damp room in the basement of Central Police Headquarters on Vía Layetana. The room had no windows, just a metal table nailed to
the floor and two chairs. There was a drain in the middle of the room, and the floor was still wet. It smelled of shit, blood, and bleach. The two policemen who had arrested her had shackled her hands and feet to the chair and left her there for hours, giving her plenty of time to imagine all the things they were going to do to her.
“Fumero is going to be so happy when he sees he’s got such a young tart waiting for him. He’ll give you a real makeover.”
Alicia had heard about Fumero. There were loads of stories about him in the streets, and about what happened to the poor devils who ended up in a dungeon like the one in the basement of police headquarters. She didn’t know whether she was trembling from cold or from fear, and when hours later the metal door opened and she heard voices and footsteps, she closed her eyes and felt urine running between her thighs and sliding down her legs.
“Open your eyes,” said a voice.
A man of medium height with the look of a small-town lawyer was smiling warmly at her through her tears. There was nobody else in the room. The guy, in an immaculate suit and smelling of lemony eau de cologne, gazed at her for a while and then walked around the table and stood behind her. Alicia pressed her lips tight to drown the cry of terror that burned her throat when she felt those hands on her shoulders and his mouth brushing her left ear.
“Don’t be afraid, Alicia.”
She began to shake violently, swaying on the chair to which she was fastened. She felt the man’s hands making their way down her back, and when the pressure gripping her wrists was relieved, it took her a few seconds to realize that her captor had removed her handcuffs. Her circulation slowly returned to her limbs, and with it the pain. The man took her arms and placed them delicately on the table. He sat down next to her and started to massage her wrists. “My name is Leandro,” he said. “Better?”
Alicia nodded.
Leandro smiled and let go of her hands. “I’m now going to take the shackles off your ankles. But first I need to make sure that you’re not going to do anything silly.”
She shook her head.
The Labyrinth of the Spirits Page 23
