“How sweet. And is that where you sent Lomana?”

Vilajuana smiled cunningly.

“Did you tell him all this stuff about evil spirits from the great beyond and the haunted house on the hill? Lomana can be very superstitious and apprehensive about these things . . .”

“I shouldn’t say this, but that’s the impression I got. I didn’t take much of a liking to the guy, so I preferred not to ruin his surprise by offering him any unrequested information.”

“Do you believe in these things? Spells and curses?”

“I believe in literature. And sometimes in the art of gastronomy, especially when it involves a good paella. The rest are just fibs or half measures, depending on how you look at it. I have a feeling that we’re quite similar in this respect. About literature, not gastronomy.”

“So what happened then?” asked Alicia, eager to return to the story about Mataix.

“To tell you the truth, I never heard Mataix complain about interference from the hereafter or anything like that. I’d say he believed in all this baloney even less than in the political harangues that in those days had already turned this country into a cackling henhouse. He’d just married Susana, with whom he was madly in love, and worked relentlessly in an office looking down on the whole of Barcelona. Susana was a frail, delicate creature. Her skin was almost transparent, and when you embraced her, you felt she might break. She tired very easily and sometimes spent the whole day in bed, too weak to get up. Mataix was always worrying about her, but he loved her to bits, and I think she loved him too. I visited them there a couple of times, and although I must admit that, as I said, the house was a bit sinister for my taste, they did seem happy, despite everything. At least at first.

“When Mataix went down to the city, as he used to say, he often came into the offices of La Vanguardia, and we’d go out to lunch together, or for a coffee. He always talked to me about the novel he was writing and would hand me a couple of pages to get my opinion, even if afterward he’d pay little attention to my comments. He used me as a guinea pig, so to speak. In those days Mataix was still a mercenary. He wrote under goodness knows how many pseudonyms at a fixed price per word. Susana’s health required constant medical attention and pricey medication, and Mataix would only allow the best specialists to see her. If this meant he had to work flat out at the expense of his own health, little did he care. Susana dreamed of getting pregnant. The doctors had already told her it would be complicated. And costly.”

“But the miracle occurred.”

“Yes. After several miscarriages and years of hardship, Susana became pregnant in 1931. Mataix lived in constant fear that she would lose the baby again, and perhaps her life. But for once everything went well. Susana had always wanted a daughter, so she could name her after a sister she had lost when she was a child.”