5
I spent the rest of that week scouring Barcelona for anyone who might remember having seen Cristina over the last month. I visited the places I’d shared with her and traced Vidal’s favourite route through cafés, restaurants and elegant shops, all in vain. I showed everyone I met a photograph from the album Cristina had left in my house and asked whether they had seen her recently. Somewhere, I forget where, I came across a person who recognised her and remembered having seen her with Vidal some time or other. Other people even remembered her name, but nobody had seen her in weeks. On the fourth day, I began to suspect that Cristina had left the tower house that morning after I went to buy the train tickets, and had evaporated off the face of the earth.
Then I remembered that Vidal’s family kept a room permanently reserved at the Hotel Espa?a, on Calle Sant Pau, behind the Liceo theatre. It was used whenever a member of the family visited the opera and didn’t feel like returning to Pedralbes in the early hours. I knew that Vidal and his father had also used it - at least in their golden years - to enjoy the company of young ladies whose presence in their official residences in Pedralbes would have led to undesirable rumours - due either to the low or the high birth of the lady in question. More than once Vidal had offered the room to me when I still lived in Do?a Carmen’s pensión in case, as he put it, I felt like undressing a damsel somewhere that wasn’t quite so alarming. I didn’t think Cristina would have chosen the hotel room as a refuge - if she knew of its existence, that is - but it was the only place left on my list and nowhere else had occurred to me.
It was getting dark when I arrived at the Hotel Espa?a and asked to speak to the manager, presenting myself as Se?or Vidal’s friend. When I showed him Cristina’s photograph, the manager, a gentleman who mistook frostiness for discretion, smiled politely and told me that ‘other’ members of Vidal’s staff had already been there a few weeks earlier, asking after that same person, and he had told them what he was telling me now: he had never seen that lady in the hotel. I thanked him for his icy kindness and walked away in defeat.
As I passed the glass doors that led into the dining room, I thought I registered a familiar profile. The boss was sitting at one of the tables, the only guest there, eating what looked like lumps of sugar. I was about to make a quick getaway when he turned and waved at me, smiling. I cursed my luck and waved back. He signalled for me to join him. I walked through the dining-room door, dragging my feet.
‘What a lovely surprise to see you here, dear friend. I was just thinking about you,’ said Corelli.
I shook hands with him reluctantly.
‘I thought you were out of town,’ I said.
‘I came back sooner than planned. Would you care for a drink?’
I declined. He asked me to sit down at his table and I obeyed. The boss wore his usual three-piece suit of black wool and a red silk tie. As always, he was impeccably attired, but something didn’t quite add up. It took me a few seconds to notice what it was - the angel brooch was not in his lapel. Corelli followed the direction of my gaze.
‘Alas, I’ve lost it, and I don’t know where,’ he explained.
‘I hope it wasn’t too valuable.’
‘Its value was purely sentimental. But let’s talk about more important matters. How are you, my dear friend? I’ve missed our conversations enormously, despite our occasional disagreements. It’s difficult to find a good conversationalist.’
‘You overrate me, Se?or Corelli.’
‘On the contrary.’
A brief silence followed, those bottomless eyes drilling into mine. I told myself that I preferred him when he embarked on his usual banal conversations - when he stopped speaking his face seemed to change and the air thickened around him.
‘Are you staying here?’ I asked to break the silence.
‘No, I’m still in the house by Güell Park. I had arranged to meet a friend here this afternoon, but he seems to be late. The manners of some people are deplorable.’
‘There can’t be many people who dare to stand you up, Se?or Corelli.’
The boss looked me straight in the eye.
‘Not many. In fact, the only person I can think of is you.’
The boss took a sugar lump and dropped it into his cup. A second lump followed, and then a third. He tasted the coffee and added four more lumps. Then he picked up yet another and popped it in his mouth.
‘I love sugar,’ he said.
‘So I see.’
‘You haven’t told me anything about our project, Martín, dear friend,’ he cut in. ‘Is there a problem?’
I winced.
‘It’s almost finished,’ I said.
The boss’s face lit up with a smile I tried to ignore.
‘That is wonderful news. When will I be able to see it?’
‘In a couple of weeks. I need to do some revisions. Pruning and finishing touches more than anything else.’
‘Can we set a date?’
‘If you like . . .’
‘How about Friday? That’s the twenty-third. Will you accept an invitation to dine and celebrate the success of our venture?’
Friday 23 January was exactly two weeks away.
‘Fine,’ I agreed.
‘That’s confirmed, then.’
He raised his sugar-filled cup as if he were drinking a toast and downed the contents in one.
‘How about you?’ he asked casually. ‘What brings you here?’
‘I was looking for someone.’
‘Someone I know?’
‘No.’
‘And have you found the person?’
‘No.’
The boss savoured my silence.
‘I get the impression that I’m keeping you here against your will, dear friend.’
‘I’m just a little tired, that’s all.’
‘Then I won’t take up any more of your time. Sometimes I forget that although I enjoy your company, perhaps mine is not to your liking.’
I smiled meekly and took the opportunity to stand up. I saw myself reflected in his pupils, a pale doll trapped in a dark well.
‘Take care of yourself, Martín. Please.’
‘I will.’
I took my leave with a quick nod and headed for the exit. As I walked away I heard him putting another sugar lump in his mouth and crunching it between his teeth.
When I turned into the Ramblas I noticed that the canopies outside the Liceo were lit up and a long row of cars, guarded by a small regiment of chauffeurs in uniform, was waiting by the pavement. The posters announced Così fan tutte and I wondered if Vidal had felt like forsaking his castle to go along. I scanned the circle of drivers that had formed on the central pavement and soon spotted Pep among them. I beckoned him over.
‘What are you doing here, Se?or Martín?’
‘Where is she?’
‘Se?or Vidal is inside, watching the performance.’
‘Not “he”. “She”. Cristina. Se?ora de Vidal. Where is she?’
Poor Pep swallowed hard.
‘I don’t know. Nobody knows.’
He told me that Vidal had spent weeks attempting to find her and that his father, the patriarch of the clan, had even hired various members of the police force to try to discover where she was.
‘At first, Se?or Vidal thought she was with you . . .’
‘Hasn’t she called, or sent a letter, a telegram . . . ? ’
‘No, Se?or Martín. I swear. We’re all very worried, and Se?or Vidal, well . . . I’ve never seen him like this in all the years I’ve known him. This is the first time he’s gone out since Se?orita Cristina, I mean Se?ora Cristina . . .’
‘Do you remember whether Cristina said something, anything, before she left Villa Helius?’
‘Well . . .’ said Pep, lowering his voice to a whisper. ‘You could hear her arguing with Se?or Vidal. She seemed sad to me. She spent a lot of time by herself. She wrote letters and every day she went to the post office in Paseo Reina Elisenda to post them.’
‘Did you ever speak to her alone?’
‘One day, shortly before she left, Se?or Vidal asked me to drive her to the doctor.’
‘Was she ill?’
‘She couldn’t sleep. The doctor prescribed laudanum.’
‘Did she say anything to you on the way there?’
Pep hesitated.
‘She asked after you, in case I’d heard from you or seen you.’
‘Is that all?’
‘She just seemed very sad. She started to cry, and when I asked her what was the matter she said she missed her father - Se?or Manuel . . .’
I suddenly understood and cursed myself for not having thought of it sooner. Pep looked at me in surprise and asked me why I was smiling.
‘Do you know where she is?’ he asked.
‘I think so,’ I murmured.
I thought I could hear a voice calling from the other side of the street and glimpsed a familiar figure in the Liceo foyer. Vidal hadn’t even managed to last the first act. Pep turned to attend to his master’s call, and before he had time to tell me to hide, I had already disappeared into the night.