“Is she alive? Have you heard from her?”
Fermín opened the box and pulled out a handful of letters.
“I never told you, because I felt that it was best for us all, but Alicia returned to Barcelona in 1960 before leaving forever. It was Sant Jordi Day, the twenty-third of April. She came back to say good-bye, in her own way.”
“I remember it perfectly. I was very young.”
“And you still are.”
We looked at one another in silence.
“Where did she go?”
“I said good-bye to her on the docks and saw her board a ship that was sailing to the Americas. Since then, every Christmas, I’ve received a letter with no sender’s address.”
Fermín handed me the wad with over thirty letters, one for every year. “You can open them.”
All the envelopes had a photograph inside. The stamp showed that each one had been sent from a different place: New York, Washington, DC, Seattle, Denver, Santa Fe, Portland, Philadelphia, Key West, New Orleans, Santa Monica, Chicago, San Francisco . . .
I looked at Fermín in astonishment. He began to hum the national anthem of the United States of America, which on his lips sounded like a sardana. Each photograph had been taken with the sun behind her and showed a shadow, the silhouette of a woman, outlined against a panoramic view of parks, skyscrapers, beaches, deserts, or forests.
“Was there nothing else?” I asked. “A note? Something?”
Fermín shook his head. “Not until the last one. It arrived last Christmas.”
I frowned. “How do you know it was the last one?”
He handed me the envelope.
The postmark showed it had been sent from Monterey, California. I pulled out the photograph and stared at it in disbelief. For once the image didn’t show just a shadow. There was Alicia Gris, thirty years on, looking at the camera and smiling from what seemed to me the most beautiful place in the world, a sort of peninsula with cliffs and mysterious forests that stretched out into the sea through the mist of the Pacific Ocean. On one side, a sign read point lobos.
I turned the photograph over and met with Alicia’s handwriting;
The end of the road. It was worth it. Thanks again for saving me, Fermín, once and so many times. Save yourself too and tell Julián to make us all immortal: we always trust he will.
I love you
Alicia
My eyes filled with tears. I wanted to believe that in that dreamlike place, so far from our Barcelona, Alicia had found her peace and her destiny.
“May I keep it?” I asked in a broken voice.
“It’s yours.”
I knew then that at last I’d found the final piece of my story, and that, from that moment on, what awaited me was life and, with luck, fiction.
Epilogue
Barcelona
August 9, 1992
A young man, already showing a few gray hairs, walks through the streets of a shadowy Barcelona under a moon that spills in a silver ribbon over Rambla de Santa Mónica, guiding his steps. A girl of about ten holds his hand, her eyes full of mystery at the promise her father made her in the evening, the promise of the Cemetery of Forgotten Books.
“Alicia, you mustn’t tell anyone what you’re about to see today. No one.”
“Then it will be our secret,” she says in a whisper.
Her father sighs, hiding behind that sad smile that has followed him through life. “Of course. It will be our secret, always.”
It is then that the sky explodes into a tree of light, and for a moment the fireworks of the closing ceremony capture the night of a Barcelona that will never return.
Shortly afterward father and daughter, like figures of vapor, merge with the crowds that flood the Ramblas, their footsteps forever lost in the labyrinth of the spirits.
Author’s Note
Illustration inspired by an image of the interior of the Sagrada Familia, photographed by Francesc Català-Roca.
About the Author
CARLOS RUIZ ZAFÓN is the author of eight novels, including the international bestselling and critically acclaimed Cemetery of Forgotten Books series: The Shadow of the Wind, The Angel’s Game, The Prisoner of Heaven, and The Labyrinth of the Spirits. His work, which also includes prizewinning young adult novels, has been translated into more than fifty different languages and published around the world, garnering numerous international awards and reaching millions of readers. He lives in Los Angeles.
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Copyright
Permission for use of photographs:
Dies Irae: Aerial view of Barcelona, 17 March 1938. Archivio Storico dell’Aeronautica Militare Italiana.
Kyrie: Sunlight and shadows on the pavements of Madrid’s Gran Vía, 1953. Copyright © Fons Fotogràfic F. Català-Roca—Arxiu Històric del Col·legi d’Arquitectes de Catalunya.
City of Mirrors: “Book Day, 1932,” Barcelona. Copyright © Gabriel Casas i Galobardes. Fons Gabriel Casas de l’Arxiu Nacional de Catalunya.
The Forgotten: Line 12 tram (at the junction of Avda. Diagonal and Avda. Sarrià), 1932–1934, Barcelona. Copyright © Gabriel Casas i Galobardes. Fons Gabriel Casas de l’Arxiu Nacional de Catalunya © Núria Casas—ANC.
Agnus Dei: Atocha Station against the sunlight, Madrid, 1953. Copyright © Fons Fotogràfic F. Català-Roca—Arxiu Històric del Col·legi d’Arquitectes de Catalunya.
Libera Me: Elegance on Madrid’s Gran Vía, 1953. Copyright © Fons Fotogràfic F. Català-Roca—Arxiu Històric del Col·legi d’Arquitectes de Catalunya.
Barcelona: Calle del Bisbe, Barcelona, 1973. Copyright © Fons Fotogràfic F. Català-Roca—Arxiu Històric del Col·legi d’Arquitectes de Catalunya.
Colophon: Sagrada Familia staircase, Barcelona. Copyright © Fons Fotogràfic F. Català-Roca—Arxiu Històric del Col·legi d’Arquitectes de Catalunya.
Francesc Català-Roca (Valls, Spain, 1922–Barcelona, 1998) was one of the great photographers of the twentieth century; the atmosphere he captures has a strong affinity with the literary universe of Carlos Ruiz Zafón.
Gabriel Casas (Barcelona, 1892–1973), an outstanding photojournalist of the period between the wars, was known for his innovative techniques. Although he was a victim of postwar repression, his work has recently been rediscovered.
the labyrinth of the spirits. Copyright © 2016 by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. Translation © 2017 by Lucia Graves. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Originally published as El Laberinto de los Espiritus in Spanish in 2016 by Planeta.
first u.s. edition
Cover design by Milan Bozic
Cover illustration by Matt Duffin
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.
Digital Edition SEPTEMBER 2018 ISBN: 978-0-06-266871-4
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-266869-1
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