I raised my cup of coffee and we toasted my unconditional surrender.
In just a couple of days I had given myself over to the peace and tranquillity of the vassal. Isabella awoke slowly, and by the time she emerged from her room, her eyes half-closed, wearing a pair of my slippers that were much too big for her, I had the breakfast ready, with coffee and the morning paper, a different one each day.
Routine is the housekeeper of inspiration. Only forty-eight hours after the establishment of the new regime, I discovered that I was beginning to recover the discipline of my most productive years. The hours of being locked up in the study crystallised into pages and more pages, in which, not without some anxiety, I began to see the work taking shape, reaching the point at which it stopped being an idea and became a reality.
The text flowed, brilliant, electric. It read like a legend, a mythological saga about miracles and hardships, peopled with characters and scenes that were knotted around a prophecy of hope for the race. The narrative prepared the way for the arrival of a warrior saviour who would liberate the nation of all pain and injustice in order to give it back the pride and glory that had been snatched away by its enemies – foes who had conspired since time immemorial against the people, whoever that people might be. The mechanics of the plot were impeccable and would work equally well for any creed, race or tribe. Flags, gods and proclamations were the jokers in a pack that always dealt the same cards. Given the nature of the work, I had chosen one of the most complex and difficult techniques to apply to any literary text: the apparent absence of technique. The language resounded plain and simple, the voice was honest and clean, a consciousness that did not narrate, but simply revealed. Sometimes I would stop to reread what I’d written and, overcome with blind vanity, I’d feel that the mechanism I was setting up worked with perfect precision. I realised that for the first time in a long while I had spent whole hours without thinking about Cristina or Pedro Vidal. Life, I told myself, was improving. Perhaps for that very reason, because it seemed that at last I was going to get out of the predicament into which I’d fallen, I did what I’ve always done when I’ve got myself back on the rails: I ruined it all.
One morning, after breakfast, I donned one of my respectable suits. I stepped into the gallery to say goodbye to Isabella and saw her leaning over her desk, rereading pages from the day before.
‘Are you not writing today?’ she asked without looking up.
‘I’m having a day off for meditation.’
I noticed the set of pen nibs and the ink pot decorated with muses next to her notebook.
‘I thought you considered it kitsch,’ I said.
‘I do, but I’m a seventeen-year-old girl and I have every right in the world to like kitsch things. It’s like you with your cigars.’
The smell of eau de cologne reached her and she looked at me questioningly. When she saw that I’d dressed to go out she frowned.
‘You’re off to do some more detective work?’ she asked.
‘A bit.’
‘Don’t you need a bodyguard? A Doctor Watson? Someone with a little common sense?’
‘Don’t learn how to find excuses for not writing before you learn how to write. That’s a privilege of professionals and you have to earn it.’
‘I think that if I’m your assistant, that should cover everything.’
I smiled meekly.
‘Actually, there is something I wanted to ask you. No, don’t worry. It’s to do with Sempere. I’ve heard that he’s hard up and that the bookshop is at risk.’
‘That can’t be true.’
‘Unfortunately it is, but it’s all right because we’re not going to allow matters to get any worse.’
‘Señor Sempere is very proud and he’s not going to let you… You’ve already tried, haven’t you?’
I nodded.
‘That’s why I thought we need to be a little shrewder, and resort to something more cunning,’ I said.
‘Your speciality.’
I ignored her disapproving tone. ‘This is what I’ve planned: you drop by the bookshop, as if you just happened to be passing, and tell Sempere that I’m an ogre, that you’re sick of me-’
‘Up to now it sounds one-hundred-per-cent credible.’
‘Don’t interrupt. You tell him all that and also tell him that what I pay you to be my assistant is a pittance.’
‘But you don’t pay me a penny…’
I sighed. This required patience.
‘When he says he’s sorry to hear it, and he will, make yourself look like a damsel in distress and confess, if possible with a tear or two, that your father has disinherited you and wants to send you to a nunnery. Tell him you thought that perhaps you could work in his shop for a few hours a day, for a trial period, in exchange for a three-per-cent commission on what you sell. That way, you can carve out a future for yourself far from the convent, as a liberated woman devoted to the dissemination of literature.’
Isabella grimaced.
‘Three per cent? Do you want to help Sempere or fleece him?’
‘I want you to put on a dress like the one you wore the other night, get yourself all spruced up, as only you know how, and pay him a visit while his son is in the shop, which is usually in the afternoons.’
‘Are we talking about the handsome one?’
‘How many sons does Señor Sempere have?’
Isabella made her calculations and, when she began to understand what was going on, she threw me a sulphurous look.
‘If my father knew the kind of perverse mind you have, he’d buy himself that shotgun.’
‘All I’m saying is that the son must see you. And the father must see the son seeing you.’
‘You’re even worse than I imagined. Now you’re devoting yourself to the white slave trade.’
‘It’s pure Christian charity. Besides, you were the first to admit that Sempere’s son is good-looking.’
‘Good-looking and a bit slow.’
‘Don’t exaggerate. Sempere junior is just shy in the presence of females, which does him credit. He’s a model citizen who, despite being aware of his enticing appearance, exercises extreme self-control out of respect and devotion to the immaculate purity of Barcelona’s womenfolk. Don’t tell me this doesn’t bestow an aura of nobility that appeals to your instincts, both maternal and the rest.’
‘Sometimes I think I hate you, Señor Martín.’
‘Hold on to that feeling, but don’t blame poor young Sempere for my deficiencies as a human being because, strictly speaking, he’s a saint.’
‘We agreed that you wouldn’t try to find me a boyfriend.’
‘I’ve said nothing about a boyfriend. If you’ll let me finish, I’ll tell you the rest.’
‘Go on, Rasputin.’
‘When the older Sempere says yes to you, and he will, I want you to spend two or three hours a day at the counter in the bookshop.’
‘Dressed like what? Mata Hari?’
‘Dressed with the decorum and good taste that is characteristic of you. Pretty, suggestive, but without standing out. As I’ve said, if necessary you can rescue one of Irene Sabino’s dresses, but it must be modest.’
‘Two or three of them look fantastic on me,’ Isabella commented, licking her lips in anticipation.