‘How can I repay you?’
‘By going upstairs and getting into bed. If you need some spicy company, take a copy of Moll Flanders.’
‘You’re right. Good old Defoe never lets you down.’
‘Not even if he tries. Go on, off to bed.’
Sempere stood up. He moved with difficulty and his breathing was laboured, with a hoarse rattle that made one’s hair stand on end. I took his arm and noticed that his skin was cold.
‘Don’t be alarmed, Martín. It’s my metabolism; it’s a little slow.’
‘Today it’s as slow as War and Peace.’
‘A little nap and I’ll be as good as new.’
I decided to go up with him to the apartment where father and son lived, above the bookshop, and make sure he got under the blankets. It took us a quarter of an hour to negotiate the stairs. On the way we met one of the neighbours, an affable secondary-school teacher called Don Anacleto, who taught language and literature at the Jesuits’ school in Calle Caspe.
‘How’s life looking today, Sempere, my friend?’
‘Rather steep, Don Anacleto.’
With the teacher’s help I managed to reach the first floor with Sempere practically hanging from my neck.
‘If you will forgive me, I must retire to rest after a long day spent fighting that pack of primates I have for pupils,’ the teacher announced. ‘I’m telling you, this country is going to disintegrate within one generation. They’ll tear each other to pieces like rats.’
Sempere made a gesture to indicate that I shouldn’t pay too much attention to Don Anacleto.
‘He’s a good man,’ he whispered, ‘but he drowns in a glass of water.’
When I stepped into the apartment I was suddenly reminded of that distant morning when I had arrived there covered in blood, holding a copy of Great Expectations. I recalled how Sempere had carried me up to his home and given me a cup of hot cocoa while we were waiting for the doctor, and how he’d whispered soothing words, cleaning the blood off my body with a warm towel and a gentleness that nobody had ever shown me before. At that time Sempere was a strong man and to me he seemed like a giant in every way; without him I don’t think I would have survived those years of scant hope. Little or nothing remained of that strength as I held him in my arms to help him into bed and covered him with a couple of blankets. I sat down next to him and took his hand, not knowing what to do.
‘Listen, if we’re both going to start crying our eyes out you’d better leave,’ he said.
‘Take care, you hear me?’
‘I’ll wrap myself in cotton wool, don’t worry.’
I nodded and started walking towards the door.
‘Martín?’
At the doorway I turned round. Sempere was looking at me with the same anxiety he had shown that morning long ago, when I’d lost a few teeth and much of my innocence. I left before he could ask me what was wrong.
31
One of the first expedients of the professional writer that Isabella had learned from me was the art of procrastination. Every veteran in the trade knows that any activity, from sharpening a pencil to cataloguing daydreams, has precedence over sitting down at one’s desk and squeezing one’s brain. Isabella had absorbed this fundamental lesson by osmosis and when I got home, instead of finding her at her desk, I surprised her in the kitchen as she was giving the last touches to a dinner that smelled and looked as if its preparation had been a question of a few hours.
‘Are we celebrating something?’ I asked.
‘With that face of yours, I don’t think so.’
‘What’s the smell?’
‘Caramelised duck with baked pears and chocolate sauce. I found the recipe in one of your cookery books.’
‘I don’t own any cookery books.’
Isabella got up and brought over a leather-bound volume, which she placed on the table: The 101 Best Recipes of French Cuisine by Michel Aragon.
‘That’s what you think. On the second row of the library bookshelves I’ve found all sort of things, including a handbook on marital hygiene by Doctor Pérez-Aguado with some very suggestive illustrations and gems such as “Woman, in accordance with the divine plan, has no knowledge of carnal desire and her spiritual and sentimental fulfilment is sublimated in the natural exercise of motherhood and household chores.” You’ve got a veritable King Solomon’s mine there.’
‘Can you tell me what you were looking for on the second row of the shelves?’
‘Inspiration. Which I found.’
‘But of a culinary persuasion. We agreed that you were going to write every day, with or without inspiration.’
‘I’m stuck. And it’s your fault, because you’ve got me moonlighting and mixed up in your schemes with the immaculate son of Sempere.’
‘Do you think it’s right to make fun of the man who’s madly in love with you?’
‘What?’
‘You heard me. Sempere’s son confessed to me that you’ve robbed him of sleep. Literally. He can’t sleep, he can’t eat and he can’t even pee, poor guy, for thinking so much about you all day.’
‘You’re delirious.’
‘The one who is delirious is poor Sempere. You should have seen him. I came very close to shooting him, to put an end to his pain and misery.’
‘But he pays no attention to me whatsoever,’ Isabella protested.
‘Because he doesn’t know how to open his heart and find the words with which to express his feelings. We men are like that. Brutish and primitive.’
‘He had no trouble finding words to tell me off for not putting a collection of the National Episodes in the right order!’
‘That’s not the same. Administrative procedure is one thing, the language of passion another.’
‘Nonsense.’
‘There’s no nonsense in love, my dear assistant. Changing the subject, are we having dinner or aren’t we?’
Isabella had set a table to match her banquet, using a whole arsenal of dishes, cutlery and glasses I’d never seen before.
‘I don’t know why, if you have all these beautiful things, you don’t use them. They were all in boxes, in the room next to the laundry,’ said Isabella. ‘Typical man!’
I picked up one of the knives and examined it in the light of the candles that Isabella had placed on the table. I realised these household utensils belonged to Diego Marlasca and this made me lose my appetite altogether.
‘Is anything the matter?’ asked Isabella.
I shook my head. My assistant served the food and stood there looking at me expectantly. I tasted a mouthful and smiled.
‘Very good,’ I said.
‘It’s a bit leathery, I think. The recipe said you had to cook it over a low flame for goodness knows how long, but on your stove the heat is either non-existent or scorching, with nothing in between.’
‘It’s good,’ I repeated, eating without appetite.
Isabella kept giving me furtive looks. We continued to eat in silence, the tinkling of the cutlery and plates our only company.
‘Were you serious about Sempere’s son?’
I nodded, without glancing up from my plate.
‘And what else did he say about me?’
‘He said you have a classical beauty, you’re intelligent, intensely feminine – that’s how old-fashioned he is – and he feels there’s a spiritual connection between you.’
Isabella threw me a murderous look.
‘Swear you’re not making this up,’ she said.
I put my right hand on the cookery book and raised my left hand.
‘I swear on The 101 Best Recipes of French Cuisine,’ I declared.
‘One usually swears with the other hand.’
I changed hands and repeated the performance with a solemn expression.
Isabella puffed.
‘What am I going to do?’
‘I don’t know. What do people do when they’re in love? Go for a stroll, go dancing…’
‘But I’m not in love with this man.’