Act Three
The Angel’s Game
1
Night had fallen by the time we reached the bookshop. A golden glow broke through the blue of the night outside Sempere & Sons, where about a hundred people had gathered holding candles. Some cried quietly, others looked at each other, not knowing what to do. I recognised some of the faces - friends and customers of Sempere, people to whom the old bookseller had given books as presents, readers who had been initiated into the art of reading through him. As the news spread through the area, more readers and friends arrived, all finding it hard to believe that Se?or Sempere had died.
The shop lights were on and I could see Don Gustavo Barceló inside, embracing a young man who could hardly stand. I didn’t realise it was Sempere’s son until Isabella pressed my hand and led me into the bookshop. When he saw me come in, Barceló looked up and smiled dolefully. The bookseller’s son was weeping in his arms and I didn’t have the courage to go and greet him. It was Isabella who went over and put her hand on his back. Sempere’s son turned round and I saw his distraught face. Isabella led him to a chair and helped him sit down; he collapsed like a rag doll and Isabella knelt down beside him and hugged him. I had never felt as proud of anyone as I was that day of Isabella. She no longer seemed a girl but a woman, stronger and wiser than any of the rest us.
Barceló came over and held out a trembling hand. I shook it.
‘It happened a couple of hours ago,’ he explained in a hoarse voice. ‘He’d been left alone in the bookshop for a moment and when his son returned . . . They say he was arguing with someone . . . I don’t know. The doctor said it was his heart.’
I swallowed hard.
‘Where is he?’
Barceló nodded towards the door of the back room. I walked over, but before going in I took a deep breath and clenched my fists. Then I walked through the doorway and saw him: he was lying on a table, his hands crossed over his belly. His skin was as white as paper and his features seemed to have sunk in on themselves. His eyes were still open. I found it hard to breathe and felt as if I’d been dealt a strong blow to the stomach. I leaned on the table and tried to steady myself. Then I bent over him and closed his eyelids. I stroked his cheek, which was cold, and looked around me at that world of pages and dreams he had created. I wanted to believe that Sempere was still there, among his books and his friends. I heard steps behind me and turned. Barceló was accompanied by two sombre-looking men, both dressed in black.
‘These gentlemen are from the undertaker’s,’ said Barceló.
They nodded with professional gravitas and went over to examine the body. One of them, who was tall and gaunt, took a brief measurement and said something to his colleague, who wrote down his instructions in a little notebook.
‘Unless there is any change, the funeral will be tomorrow afternoon, in the Pueblo Nuevo Cemetery,’ said Barceló. ‘I thought it best to take charge of the arrangements because his son is devastated, as you can see. And with these things, the sooner . . .’
‘Thank you, Don Gustavo.’
The bookseller glanced at his old friend and smiled tearfully.
‘What are we going to do now that the old man has left us?’ he said.
‘I don’t know . . .’
One of the undertakers discreetly cleared his throat.
‘If it’s all right with you, in a moment my colleague and I will go and fetch the coffin and—’
‘Do whatever you have to do,’ I cut in.
‘Any preferences regarding the ceremony?’
I stared at him, not understanding.
‘Was the deceased a believer?’
‘Se?or Sempere believed in books,’ I said.
‘I see,’ he replied as he left the room.
I looked at Barceló, who shrugged his shoulders.
‘Let me ask his son,’ I added.
I went back to the front of the bookshop. Isabella glanced at me inquisitively and stood up. She left Sempere’s son and came over to me and I whispered the problem to her.
‘Se?or Sempere was a good friend of the local parish priest - from the church of Santa Ana right next door. People say the bigwigs in the diocese have been wanting to get rid of the priest for years, because they consider him a rebel in the ranks, but he’s so old they decided to wait for him to die instead. He’s too tough a nut for them to crack.’
‘Then he’s the man we need,’ I said.
‘I’ll speak to him,’ said Isabella.
I pointed towards Sempere’s son.
‘How is he?’
Isabella met my gaze.
‘And how are you?’ she replied.
‘I’m fine,’ I lied. ‘Who’s going to stay with him tonight?’
‘I am,’ she said, without a moment’s hesitation.
I kissed her on the cheek and returned to the back room. Barceló was sitting in front of his old friend, and while the two undertakers took further measurements and debated about suits and shoes, he poured two glasses of brandy and offered one to me. I sat down next to him.
‘To the health of our friend Sempere, who taught us all how to read, and even how to live,’ he said.
We toasted and drank in silence. We remained there until the undertakers returned with the coffin and the clothes in which Sempere was going to be buried.
‘If it’s all right with you, we’ll take care of this,’ the one who seemed to be the brighter of the two suggested. I agreed. Before leaving the room and going back to the front of the shop I picked up the old copy of Great Expectations, which I’d never come back to collect, and put it in Sempere’s hands.
‘For the journey,’ I said.
A quarter of an hour later, the undertakers brought out the coffin and placed it on a large table that had been set up in the middle of the bookshop. A multitude had been gathering in the street, waiting in silence. I went over to the door and opened it. One by one, the friends of Sempere & Sons filed through. Some were unable to hold back the tears, and such were the scenes of grief that Isabella took the bookseller’s son by the hand and led him up to the apartment above the bookshop, where he had lived all his life with his father. Barceló and I stayed in the shop, keeping old Sempere company while people came in to say their farewells. Those closest to him stayed on.
The wake lasted the entire night. Barceló remained until five in the morning and I didn’t leave until Isabella came down to the shop shortly after dawn and ordered me to go home, if only to change my clothes and freshen up.
I looked at poor Sempere and smiled. I couldn’t believe I’d never see him again, standing behind the counter, when I came in through that door. I remembered the first time I’d visited the bookshop, when I was just a child, and the bookseller had seemed tall and strong. Indestructible. The wisest man in the world.
‘Go home, please,’ murmured Isabella.
‘What for?’
‘Please . . .’
She came out into the street with me and hugged me.
‘I know how fond you were of him and what he meant to you,’ she said.
Nobody knew, I thought. Nobody. But I nodded and, after kissing her on the cheek, I wandered off, walking through streets that seemed emptier than ever, thinking that if I didn’t stop, if I kept on walking, I wouldn’t notice that the world I thought I knew was no longer there.