* * *

And another day came, and then another, and a few months went by during which Fermín artfully slipped away and left me in the dark about his insinuations regarding Alicia Gris. Guessing that he would tell me what he had to tell me when the moment was right, or just whenever he felt like it, I made use of Valentina’s francs and bought myself a ticket to Paris. It was 1976, and I was nineteen.

My parents were unaware of the real reason for my trip, which I attributed to a desire to see the world, although my mother always suspected my true intentions. I was never able to hide the truth from her—as I had once told my father, I kept no secrets from her. My mother knew about my goings-on with Valentina and my ambitions, which she always supported, even when I periodically touched rock bottom and swore I was abandoning them because of my lack of talent and courage.

“Nobody succeeds without failing first,” she assured me.

I knew my father was annoyed, although he wouldn’t tell me. He didn’t approve of my trip to Paris. According to him, what I should be doing was making my mind up and devoting myself once and for all to whatever it was I was going to do. If I wanted to be a writer, I’d do better to start taking it seriously. And if I wanted to be a bookseller, or parakeet trainer, or anything else, then ditto.

I didn’t know how to tell him that what I needed was to go to Paris and find Carax, because it made no sense at all. I had no arguments with which to support the idea; I simply knew it in my heart. He didn’t come to the station, saying he had to go to Vic for a meeting with his distinguished colleague, Señor Costa, a doyen of the profession and possibly the wisest dealer in the secondhand book business. When I got to the Estación de Francia, I bumped into my mother, sitting on one of the platform benches.

“I bought you a pair of gloves,” she said. “I hear it’s freezing in Paris.”

I hugged her. “Do you also think I’m mistaken?”

My mother shook her head.

“One has to make one’s own mistakes, not other people’s. Do what you have to do and come back soon. Or whenever you can.”

* * *

In Paris I found the world. My scant budget allowed me to rent an attic the size of an ashtray crowning a building on the corner of Rue Soufflot, which was the architectural equivalent of a Paganini solo. My watchtower hung over Place du Panthéon. From there I could gaze over the whole of the Latin Quarter, the terraced roofs of the Sorbonne, and the entire Left Bank.

I suppose I rented it because it reminded me of Valentina. When I looked out for the first time and saw the crest of dormers and chimneys surrounding the attic, I felt I was the most fortunate man on the planet. I spent the first few days making my way through an extraordinary world of cafés, bookshops, and streets strewn with palaces, museums, and people breathing a freedom that dazzled a poor novice like me, who came from the Stone Age with a heap of fluttering dreams in his head.