“Don’t be like that. Help me get out of Barcelona and find me a weapon. The rest is my business. You know that deep down it will be good for you. Bea would agree with me.”

“Ask her for the pistol and see what she says.”

“Bea doesn’t trust me.”

“And why might that be?”

“We’re wasting precious time, Fermín. What do you say?”

“Just piss off, and I won’t say go to hell because that’s where you’re going, headfirst.”

“That’s no way to speak to a young lady.”

“You’re as much a lady as I’m a sumo wrestler. Take a swig of that stuff of yours, and go back to your coffin to sleep it off before you do something evil.”

When Fermín got tired of arguing, he would leave her alone. Alicia would have a bit of dinner with Isaac, listen to the stories about Nuria, and when the old keeper retired, would pour herself a glass of white wine (a couple of days earlier, she’d discovered where Isaac hid the bottles confiscated by the doctor) and leave the room. She would walk down the corridor until she reached the hall with the high vaulted ceiling, and there, under the breath of the midnight light cascading down from the top of the cupola, she would stare at the vision of the great labyrinth of books.

Guided by a lamp, she entered the corridors and tunnels. She limped up the cathedral-like structure, negotiating rooms, junctions, and bridges that led to hidden halls crossed by spiral staircases or by hanging footbridges forming arches and buttresses. On the way she stroked the hundreds and thousands of books that awaited their readers. Sometimes she’d fall asleep on a chair in one of the rooms she found on her itinerary. Every night the route was different.

The Cemetery of Forgotten Books had its own geometry, and it was practically impossible to walk past the same place twice. More than once she’d gotten lost and had taken a while to find the way back down to the exit. One night, when dawn was beginning to glimmer above, Alicia emerged at the very top of the labyrinth and found herself standing on the same spot where she’d landed after falling through the broken dome, that night of the air bombings in 1938. When she looked down into the abyss, she glimpsed the minute figure of Isaac Montfort at the foot of the labyrinth. The keeper was still there when she reached the bottom.

“I thought I was the only one with insomnia,” he said.

“Sleep is for dreamers.”

“I’ve made some chamomile tea—it helps me sleep. Would you like a cup?”

“If we add a dash of something to it.”

“The only thing I have left is some old brandy I wouldn’t even use to unclog the water pipes.”

“I’m not fussy.”

“And what will Dr. Soldevila say?”

“What all doctors say: what doesn’t kill you makes you fat.”

“You could do with getting a bit fatter.”