“So, do you forgive me?”

“What does it matter to you?”

“I don’t like to think that it’s because of me that you go around being the guardian angel of people—of Daniel and his family.”

“I’m the bibliographic adviser to the Sempere & Sons bookshop. The angelic attributes are your invention.”

“Are you sure you don’t think that if you save someone decent, you’ll save the world, or at least the possibility that something good might be left in it?”

“Who said you’re someone decent?”

“I was talking about the Semperes.”

“Don’t you do the same thing, deep down, my dear Alicia?”

“I don’t think there is anything decent to save in the world, Fermín.”

“Even you don’t believe that. The trouble is that you’re afraid of finding out that there is.”

“Or the opposite, in your case.”

Fermín let out a grunt and dug his hand in his raincoat pocket in search of sweets. “Let’s not get all corny. You stick to your nihilism, and I’ll stick to my Sugus sweets.”

“Two unmistakable values.”

“And no two ways about it.”

“Go on, give me a good-night kiss, Fermín.”

“You and your kisses!”

“On the cheek.”

Fermín hesitated, but in the end he leaned over and brushed her forehead with his lips. “Go to sleep, for Christ’s sake, you demon woman.”

Alicia closed her eyes and smiled. “I love you very much, Fermín.”

When she heard him crying quietly, she stretched out her hand until she found his. And so, holding each other, they fell asleep in the warmth of a dying candle.

10

The keeper of that place, Isaac Montfort, brought Alicia a tray twice or three times a day with a glass of milk, a few slices of toast with butter and jam, and some fruit or a pastry from the Escribá Patisserie, the sort he bought every Sunday—for he too had his weaknesses beyond literature and a hermit’s life, especially if they involved significant amounts of pine nuts and custard cream. After much pleading, Isaac began to bring her old newspapers, even though Dr. Soldevila wasn’t too happy about it. That is how she was able to read everything the press had published about the death of Mauricio Valls and feel her blood boil again.

This is what has saved you, Alicia, she thought.

Good old Isaac was a small, fierce-looking man, but he had a tender nature and had developed a soft spot for Alicia he was barely able to hide. He said she reminded him of his late daughter. Nuria was her name. He always carried two pictures of her in his pocket. One was of a rather mysterious-looking woman, who smiled sadly; the other showed a happy little girl hugging a man Alicia recognized as Isaac, a few decades younger.

“She left me before knowing how much I loved her,” he said.

Sometimes, when he brought in the tray with her food and Alicia struggled to swallow two or three mouthfuls, Isaac would be overcome by a wave of memories and start telling her about his daughter Nuria, and about his regrets. Alicia listened to him. She suspected that the old man hadn’t shared that sorrow with anyone, but fate had chosen to send him a stranger who resembled the person he had most loved, so that now, when it was too late, when he was no longer of any use to anyone, he could find some comfort by trying to save Alicia and give her an affection that didn’t belong to her. Sometimes, when he talked about his daughter, the old man would start to cry, haunted by that memory. Then he would leave Alicia and not return for hours. The most sincere pain is experienced alone. Alicia felt secretly relieved when Isaac took his infinite sadness to a corner to drown in it. The only pain she hadn’t learned to tolerate was to see old people cry.