* * *

They all took turns watching over Alicia and keeping her company. Daniel liked reading to her from books he borrowed from the labyrinth, especially books by someone called Julián Carax, for whom he felt a special fondness. Carax’s pen made Alicia think of music and chocolate cakes. The times she spent with Daniel every day, listening to him read from Carax’s pages, allowed her to lose herself in a forest of words and images that she was always sad to leave. Her favorite was a short novel called Nobody, whose last paragraph she ended up learning by heart, and would whisper to herself when she was trying to get to sleep:

In war he made a fortune, and in love he lost everything. He was destined not to be happy, never to taste the fruit which that late spring had brought to his heart. He knew then that he would live the rest of his days in solitude’s perpetual autumn, with no other company or memory than longing and remorse, and that when someone asked who had built that house and who had lived in it before it became a haunted ruin, people who had known it and were familiar with its accursed history would look down and say, in a very faint voice and hoping the wind would blow away their words: nobody.

She soon discovered that she couldn’t talk about Julián Carax to anybody, least of all to Isaac. The Semperes had shared some sort of history with Carax, and Alicia thought it best not to rummage around in the family’s shadows. Isaac, in particular, couldn’t bear to hear Carax’s name without turning purple with anger. As Daniel explained to her, Isaac’s daughter Nuria had been in love with Carax. The old man believed that all his poor daughter’s misfortunes, which had led to her tragic death, were due to Carax, a strange character who, she learned, had once tried to burn all the existing copies of his own books. Had the keeper not been sworn in to his post, Carax would have been able to count on his enthusiastic help.

“It’s best not to mention Carax to Isaac,” said Daniel. “Come to think of it, better not mention him to anyone.”

The only person among them all who saw Alicia as she was, and who didn’t have any imaginary ideas or qualms, was Daniel’s wife. Bea bathed her, dressed her, combed her hair, and gave her the medication, her eyes conveying that constraint presiding over their relationship, which they had both implicitly established. Bea would take care of Alicia; she would help her to heal and recover so that, as soon as possible, she could get out of their lives and disappear forever, before she could hurt them.

Bea, the woman Alicia would have liked to be and who, with every day spent in her company, she realized she never would. Bea, who spoke little and asked even less, but who understood her better than anyone. Alicia had never been one for hugs and gestures, but more than once had felt the urge to embrace her. Luckily she always restrained herself at the last second. A quick glance at Bea was enough for Alicia to know that this was not a parish church performance of Little Women, and that they both had a task to accomplish.