Clinging to that empirical principle and sinking his teeth into a Sugus or two, Fermín started walking back to the warm bed where Bernarda waited for him, convinced that nothing happened by chance and that sooner or later he would uncover that mystery or else that mystery would uncover him, once and for all.

3

While proceeding toward the exit, Alicia noticed the figure sitting on a bench by the platform entrance, looking at her out of the corner of his eye—a small, scrawny man whose face orbited around a prominent nose, his features vaguely reminiscent of a Goya painting. He wore a coat that was far too big for him, making him look like a snail carrying his shell. Alicia could have sworn he wore newspaper pages folded under his clothes to keep himself warm, or for goodness knows what other reason, a practice she had not seen since the first postwar years.

The simplest thing would have been to forget him and tell herself he was only another nameless face, caught in the flood of the dispossessed, still floating around the dark areas of large cities almost twenty years after the end of the war—hoping perhaps that history would remember Spain and rescue the country from oblivion. The simplest thing would have been to think that Barcelona would give her at least a few hours’ respite before making her confront her fate. She walked past him without looking back and went straight to the exit, praying to the devil that he hadn’t recognized her. Twenty years had passed since that night, and she’d only been a child at the time.

Outside the station she climbed into a taxi and asked the driver to take her to number 12, Calle Aviñón. Her voice shook as she pronounced those words. The car drove straight up Paseo Isabel II toward Vía Layetana, dodging a pas de deux of intersecting trams that lit up the mist with blue electric sparks crackling on the overhead cables. Alicia scanned Barcelona’s somber outlines through the window: the arches and towers, the narrow streets penetrating the old town, the lights of Montjuïc Castle far up in the distance. Home, dark home, she told herself.

At that time of night there was hardly any traffic. Ten minutes later, they’d reached their destination. The taxi driver left her by the front door of 12 Calle Aviñón, and after thanking her for the tip, which doubled the fare on the meter, he set off down the road, heading for the port. Alicia abandoned herself to the cold breeze that carried with it that neighborhood smell of an old Barcelona not even the rain could dispel. She caught herself smiling. In time, even bad memories dress up for the occasion.

* * *

Her home was just a few steps away from the intersection with Calle Fernando, opposite the old Gran Café. Alicia was fumbling for her keys in her coat pocket when she heard the front door opening. She looked up to meet the smiling face of Jesusa, the caretaker.