“The so-called Isabella?”

“I don’t know. . . . I haven’t found that part of the jigsaw yet.”

“Was Isabella the same person who a bit later married the bookseller Sempere?”

Vilajuana looked at her, somewhat surprised. “How do you know that?”

“Let’s say I have my sources.”

“Which it would be nice if you shared with me.”

“As soon as I can. You have my word. So was Isabella that same person?”

“Yes. She was. Isabella Gispert, the daughter of the owners of the Gispert grocers, which is still behind Santa María del Mar. She was the person destined to become Isabella de Sempere.”

“Do you think Isabella was in love with David Martín?”

“May I remind you that she married the bookseller Sempere, not Martín.”

“That doesn’t prove anything,” replied Alicia.

“I suppose it doesn’t.”

“Did you know her? Did you know Isabella?”

Vilajuana nodded. “I was at her wedding.”

“Did she seem happy?”

“All brides are happy on their wedding day.”

This time it was Alicia’s turn to smile maliciously. “What was she like?”

The man lowered his eyes. “I only spoke to her once or twice.”

“But she must have made an impression.”

“Yes. Isabella made an impression.”

“And?”

“And she seemed to me one of those very rare people who make this dog’s world a place worth visiting.”

“Did you go to the funeral?”

Vilajuana nodded slowly.

“Is it true she died of cholera?”

A shadow crossed the journalist’s face. “That’s what they said.”

“But you don’t believe it.”

The journalist shook his head.

“So, why don’t you tell me the rest of the story?”

“In all honesty, it’s a very sad story that I’d rather forget.”

“Is that why you’ve spent so many years writing a book about it? A book I’m sure you know you’ll never be able to publish. At least not in this country . . .”

Vilajuana smiled sadly. “Do you know what David Martín said to me, the last time I saw him? It was on a night when the three of us, Mataix, Martín, and me, had drunk a glass too many in El Xampanyet to celebrate Víctor finishing his first Labyrinth book.”

Alicia shook her head.

“I don’t know why, but the conversation drifted toward the old subject of writers and alcohol. Martín, who could drink a bathful of liquor and still remain lucid, told me something that night that I have never forgotten. ‘One drinks to remember, and one writes to forget.’”

“Maybe he wasn’t as mad as he seemed.”

Vilajuana nodded silently, his face overwhelmed with memories.

“Then tell me what you’ve been trying to forget for so many years.”

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” Vilajuana said.

Fragment of

THE FORGOTTEN:

Víctor Mataix and the End of Barcelona’s Lost Generation

by Sergio Vilajuana

(Ediciones Destino, Barcelona, 1989)

One does not need to be Goethe to know that sooner or later any writer worth his salt will come across his Mephistopheles. Kind-hearted writers, if they exist, will offer him their soul. The rest will sell him the soul of any of the gullible people who stand in their way.