I found him again in the same place the following day, and the next. Julián Carax had realized only too late that the person he loved most in the world, the woman who had given her life for him, would never be able to hear his voice again. He went there every day and sat opposite her grave to talk to her and spend what was left of his life in her company.

It was he who came up to me one day and stood there, looking at me in silence. The skin he’d lost in the fire had grown again and lent him an ageless face with no expression, which he hid beneath a bushy beard and an old-fashioned homburg hat.

“Who are you?” he asked. There was no hostility in his voice.

“My name is Julián Sempere. I’m the son of Daniel and Bea.”

He nodded slowly. “Are they well?”

“Yes.”

“Do they know you’re here?”

“Nobody knows.”

“And may I ask you why you’re here?”

I didn’t know where to begin. “May I buy you a cup of coffee?”

“I don’t drink coffee,” he said. “But you can buy me an ice cream.”

My face must have betrayed my surprise.

“When I was young, there were hardly any ice creams. I’ve discovered them late, like so many other things . . .”

* * *

That is how, that slow summer evening, after having dreamed of that moment since I was a child, and having ransacked Paris and Barcelona trying to find him, I ended up in a milk bar in Plaza Real sharing a table with Julián Carax, whom I bought two scoops of strawberry ice cream and a rolled wafer. I ordered an iced lemonade, because the damp heat that pervades Barcelona summers was already looming.

“What can I do for you, Señor Sempere?”

“If I tell you, you’ll take me for a fool.”

“I have a feeling you’ve been looking for me for some time. And since in the end you’ve found me, I would only take you for a fool if you didn’t tell me.”

I drank half the lemonade in one gulp, to gather strength. Then I set out my idea. He listened attentively, showing no sign of disapproval or reservation.

“Very ingenious,” he concluded at the end of my speech.

“Don’t laugh at me.”

“It wouldn’t occur to me. I’m telling you what I think.”

“What else are you thinking?”

“That you’re the one who should write this story. It belongs to you.”

I shook my head slowly. “I don’t know how to. I’m not a writer.”

“Get yourself an Underwood. The professional’s choice.”

“I didn’t know that ad had also appeared in France.”

“It ran everywhere. Don’t trust ads. An Olivetti would also do the job.”

I smiled. At least I shared a sense of humor with Carax.

“Let me show you something,” Carax offered.

“How to write?”

“That’s something you’ll have to learn on your own,” he replied. “Writing is a profession that can be learned, but nobody can teach it. The day you understand what that means will be the day you start learning to be a writer.”