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Authors: Carlos Ruiz Zafón
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undulated in the gloom.
‘Holy Mother of God,’ mumbled the manager.
No one else dared take the first step, so once more I had to lead the expedition. The secretary held the lamp up high, looking at everything with a baleful air.
The manager and the auditor exchanged a knowing look. When they noticed that I was observing them, the auditor smiled calmly.
‘A good bit of dusting and some patching up and the place will look like a palace,’ he said.
‘Bluebeard’s palace,’ the manager added.
‘Let’s be positive,’ the auditor corrected him. ‘The house has been empty for some time: there’s bound to be some minor damage.’
I was barely paying attention to them. I had dreamed about that place so often as I walked past its front door that now I hardly noticed the dark, gloomy aura that possessed it. I walked up the main corridor, exploring rooms of all shapes and sizes in which old furniture lay abandoned under a thick layer of dust and shadow. One table was still covered with a frayed tablecloth on which sat a dinner service and a tray of petrified fruit and flowers. The glasses and cutlery were still there, as if the inhabitants of the house had fled in the middle of dinner.
The wardrobes were crammed with threadbare faded clothes and shoes. There were whole drawers filled with photographs, spectacles, fountain pens and watches. Dust-covered portraits observed us from every surface. The beds were made and covered with a white veil that shone in the half-light. A gramophone rested on a mahogany table. It had a record on it and the needle had slid to the end. I blew on the film of dust that covered it and the title of the recording came into view: W. A. Mozart’s Lacrimosa .
‘The symphony orchestra performing in your own home,’ said the auditor. ‘What more could one ask for? You’ll live like a lord here.’
The manager shot him a murderous look, clearly in disagreement. We went through the apartment until we reached the gallery at the back, where a coffee service lay on a table and an open book on an armchair was still waiting for someone to turn over the page.
‘It looks like whoever lived here left suddenly, with no time to take anything with them,’ I said.
The auditor cleared his throat.
‘Perhaps the gentleman would like to see the study?’
The study was at the top of a tall tower, a peculiar structure at the heart of which was a spiral staircase that led off the main corridor, while its outside walls bore the traces of as many generations as the city could remember. There it stood, like a watchtower suspended over the roofs of the Ribera quarter, crowned by a narrow dome of metal and tinted glass that served as a lantern, and topped by a weathervane in the shape of a dragon. We climbed the stairs, and when we reached the room at the top, the auditor quickly opened the windows to let in air and light. It was a rectangular room with high ceilings and dark wooden flooring. Its four large arched windows looked out on all four sides, giving me a view of the cathedral of Santa María del Mar to the south, the large Borne market to the north, the railway station to the east and to the west the endless maze of streets and avenues tumbling over one another towards Mount Tibidabo.
‘What do you say? Marvellous!’ proposed the auditor enthusiastically.
The property manager examined everything with a certain reserve and displeasure. His secretary held the lamp up high, even though it was no longer needed. I went over to one of the windows and leaned out, spellbound.
The whole of Barcelona stretched out at my feet and I wanted to believe that when I opened those windows - my new windows - each evening its streets would whisper stories to me, secrets in my ear, that I could catch on paper and narrate to whoever cared to listen. Vidal had his exuberant and stately ivory tower in the most elegant and elevated part of Pedralbes, surrounded by hills, trees and fairytale skies. I would have my
‘Holy Mother of God,’ mumbled the manager.
No one else dared take the first step, so once more I had to lead the expedition. The secretary held the lamp up high, looking at everything with a baleful air.
The manager and the auditor exchanged a knowing look. When they noticed that I was observing them, the auditor smiled calmly.
‘A good bit of dusting and some patching up and the place will look like a palace,’ he said.
‘Bluebeard’s palace,’ the manager added.
‘Let’s be positive,’ the auditor corrected him. ‘The house has been empty for some time: there’s bound to be some minor damage.’
I was barely paying attention to them. I had dreamed about that place so often as I walked past its front door that now I hardly noticed the dark, gloomy aura that possessed it. I walked up the main corridor, exploring rooms of all shapes and sizes in which old furniture lay abandoned under a thick layer of dust and shadow. One table was still covered with a frayed tablecloth on which sat a dinner service and a tray of petrified fruit and flowers. The glasses and cutlery were still there, as if the inhabitants of the house had fled in the middle of dinner.
The wardrobes were crammed with threadbare faded clothes and shoes. There were whole drawers filled with photographs, spectacles, fountain pens and watches. Dust-covered portraits observed us from every surface. The beds were made and covered with a white veil that shone in the half-light. A gramophone rested on a mahogany table. It had a record on it and the needle had slid to the end. I blew on the film of dust that covered it and the title of the recording came into view: W. A. Mozart’s Lacrimosa .
‘The symphony orchestra performing in your own home,’ said the auditor. ‘What more could one ask for? You’ll live like a lord here.’
The manager shot him a murderous look, clearly in disagreement. We went through the apartment until we reached the gallery at the back, where a coffee service lay on a table and an open book on an armchair was still waiting for someone to turn over the page.
‘It looks like whoever lived here left suddenly, with no time to take anything with them,’ I said.
The auditor cleared his throat.
‘Perhaps the gentleman would like to see the study?’
The study was at the top of a tall tower, a peculiar structure at the heart of which was a spiral staircase that led off the main corridor, while its outside walls bore the traces of as many generations as the city could remember. There it stood, like a watchtower suspended over the roofs of the Ribera quarter, crowned by a narrow dome of metal and tinted glass that served as a lantern, and topped by a weathervane in the shape of a dragon. We climbed the stairs, and when we reached the room at the top, the auditor quickly opened the windows to let in air and light. It was a rectangular room with high ceilings and dark wooden flooring. Its four large arched windows looked out on all four sides, giving me a view of the cathedral of Santa María del Mar to the south, the large Borne market to the north, the railway station to the east and to the west the endless maze of streets and avenues tumbling over one another towards Mount Tibidabo.
‘What do you say? Marvellous!’ proposed the auditor enthusiastically.
The property manager examined everything with a certain reserve and displeasure. His secretary held the lamp up high, even though it was no longer needed. I went over to one of the windows and leaned out, spellbound.
The whole of Barcelona stretched out at my feet and I wanted to believe that when I opened those windows - my new windows - each evening its streets would whisper stories to me, secrets in my ear, that I could catch on paper and narrate to whoever cared to listen. Vidal had his exuberant and stately ivory tower in the most elegant and elevated part of Pedralbes, surrounded by hills, trees and fairytale skies. I would have my
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