'I'm not Kolvenik,' the voice interjected. 'My name is Sentis, Benjamin Sentis.'

'I'm sorry, Senor Sentis, but I've been given this address and . . .'

I handed him the visiting card given to me by the porter at the station. A rigid hand grabbed it, and the man, whose face I couldn't see, examined it in silence for a good while before handing it back to me.

'Mijail Kolvenik hasn't lived here for years.'

'You know him?' I asked. 'Perhaps you could help me?'

Another long silence.

'Come in,' Sentis said at last.

Benjamin Sentis was a hefty man who inhabited a wine-coloured flannel dressing gown. He held an unlit pipe in his mouth and sported one of those moustaches that join up with sideburns, Jules Verne style. The flat stood above the jungle of flat roofs of the old quarter and seemed to float in an ethereal light. The cathedral towers could be seen in the distance and far away rose the mountain of Montjuic. A piano sat collecting layers of dust, and boxes of old newspapers populated the floor. There was nothing in that house that spoke of the present. Benjamin Sentis lived in the past tense.

We sat in the room facing the terrace and Sentis had another look at the card.

'Why are you looking for Kolvenik?' he asked.

I decided to tell him everything from the start, from our visit to the cemetery to the strange sight of the lady in black in the Estacion de Francia. Sentis stared absently as he listened to me, showing no emotion. At the end of my story an uncomfortable silence arose between us. Sentis looked at me carefully. He had wolfish eyes, cold and penetrating.

'Mijail Kolvenik lived in this flat for four years, shortly after he arrived in Barcelona,' he said. 'There are still some of his books in the back somewhere. It's all that's left of him.'

'Would you happen to have his present address? Do you know where I could find him?'

Sentis laughed.

'Try h.e.l.l.'

I looked at him without understanding.

'Mijail Kolvenik died in 1948.'

According to what Benjamin Sentis told me that morning, Mijail Kolvenik had arrived in Barcelona towards the end of 1919. Just twenty, a native of Prague, Kolvenik was fleeing from the ruins left behind by the Great War. He didn't speak a word of Catalan or Spanish, although he was fluent in French and German. He had no money, friends or acquaintances in that difficult and hostile city and spent his first night in a prison cell after being caught sleeping in a doorway to shelter from the cold. In the prison two of his cellmates accused of a.s.sault and battery as well as arson decided to give him a beating on the grounds that the country was going to the dogs because of filthy foreigners. His three broken ribs, the bruises and the internal injuries would heal over time, but he lost the hearing in his left ear for ever. 'Permanent nerve damage,' the doctors diagnosed. An inauspicious beginning. But Mijail Kolvenik always said that what starts badly can only end better. Ten years later he would be one of the richest and most powerful men in the city of Barcelona.

In the prison sick bay he met the man who, over the years, would become his best friend, a young doctor of English descent called Joan Sh.e.l.ley. Dr Sh.e.l.ley spoke a little German and knew from personal experience how it felt to be a foreigner in a strange country. Thanks to him, Kolvenik got a job in a small firm called Velo-Granell Industries after he was discharged from the hospital. Velo-Granell manufactured orthopaedic supplies and artificial limbs. The war with Morocco and the Great War in Europe had created a huge market for such products. Legions of men, butchered for the greater glory and profit margins of bankers, chancellors, generals, stockbrokers and other fathers of the nation, had been maimed and ruined for life in the name of freedom, democracy, the Empire, the race or the flag . . . Take your pick.

The Velo-Granell workshops were located near the Borne Market. Inside, gla.s.s cabinets displaying artificial arms, eyes, legs and joints reminded the visitor of the fragility of the human body. With his modest pay and a good reference from his firm, Mijail Kolvenik found accommodation in a flat on Calle Princesa. An avid reader, in one and a half years Kolvenik learned to speak Catalan and Spanish reasonably well. His talent and ingenuity soon earned him a reputation as one of the key employees at Velo-Granell. Kolvenik had extensive medical, surgical and anatomical knowledge. He designed a revolutionary pneumatic mechanism that enabled the movement of joints in artificial arms and legs. The device reacted to muscular impulses, providing the patient with unprecedented mobility. This invention placed the Velo-Granell firm at the forefront of the industry. And that was just the beginning. Kolvenik's drawing table was endlessly producing innovations, and it wasn't long before he was named chief engineer of the design and development workshop.

Months later, an unfortunate incident put young Kolvenik's talent to the test. The son and heir of Velo-Granell's founder suffered a terrible accident in the factory. A hydraulic press like the jaws of a dragon severed both his hands. For weeks Kolvenik worked tirelessly to create new hands made of wood, metal and porcelain, with fingers that responded to the command of muscles and tendons in the forearm. Kolvenik's solution made use of electric currents from the arm nerves to produce the movements. Four months after the accident the victim began to use mechanical hands that enabled him to pick up objects, light a cigarette or do up his shirt b.u.t.tons without any help. Everyone agreed that this time Kolvenik had surpa.s.sed everything imaginable. Not being very fond of praise and jubilation, Kolvenik stated that this was only the dawn of a new science. To reward him for his work, the founder of Velo-Granell Industries named Kolvenik director general of the firm and offered him a package of shares that virtually turned him into one of the owners next to the man who had been given new hands thanks to his inventiveness.

Under Kolvenik's management, Velo-Granell took on a new direction. It expanded its market and diversified its products. The firm adopted the symbol of a black b.u.t.terfly with open wings, an icon that was dear to Kolvenik's heart but whose significance he never fully explained. The plant expanded to launch new mechanisms: articulated limbs, circulatory valves, artificial bone tissue and no end of novel devices. The Tibidabo funfair was peopled with automatons created by Kolvenik as a pastime and testing ground. Velo-Granell exported its products all over Europe, America and Asia. The value of its shares and Kolvenik's personal fortune shot up, but he refused to leave that modest flat on Calle Princesa. He said there was no need for him to change. He lived alone, led a simple life, and that apartment was quite enough for him and his books.

The situation was about to change with the arrival of a new piece on the chessboard: Eva Irinova, the star of a highly successful new show in the Teatro Real. The young diva, Russian by birth, was only nineteen. People said that her beauty had driven gentlemen to suicide in Paris, Vienna and other capital cities, once they realised they would never spend another night in her arms. No doubt this was part of the publicity legend orchestrated by some shady stage impresario, but the public will always choose a warmed-up lie over the cold truth. Eva Irinova travelled in the company of two strange characters, the twins Sergei and Tatiana Glazunow. The Glazunow siblings acted as agents and tutors for Eva Irinova. It was rumoured that Sergei and the young diva were lovers and that the fiendish Tatiana slept inside a coffin beneath the stage of the Teatro Real; that Sergei had been one of the a.s.sa.s.sins of the Romanov dynasty; that Eva was able to speak to the spirits of the dead . . . Again, all kinds of farfetched s...o...b..z gossip only served to increase the fame of the mysterious and beautiful siren who held Barcelona in the palm of her hand.

It was only a matter of time before Irinova's tale reached Kolvenik's ears. Intrigued, he went to the theatre one night to see for himself what was causing such a stir. One evening was enough for Kolvenik to fall under the young woman's spell. After that day Irinova's dressing room became, quite literally, a bed of roses. Two months after this revelation Kolvenik decided to hire a box in the theatre. He would sit there spellbound, gazing at the object of his adoration. Needless to say, the matter soon became the talk of the town. One fine day Kolvenik called a meeting with his lawyers and instructed them to make an offer to the impresario Daniel Mestres. He wanted to buy the old theatre and take over the debts weighing it down. His idea was to rebuild it from the foundations and turn it into the greatest stage in Europe. A magnificent theatre equipped with the latest technological advances and dedicated to his beloved Eva Irinova. The theatre managers gave in to his generous proposal. The new project was christened the Gran Teatro Real. The following day, Kolvenik proposed to Eva Irinova in fluent Russian. She accepted.

After the wedding the couple were planning to move into a dream mansion Kolvenik was having built next to Guell Park he'd presented a preliminary design for the sumptuous building to the architectural firm Sunyer, Balcells i Baro. People claimed that n.o.body had ever paid such a huge sum for a private residence in the whole of Barcelona's history, which was saying something. And yet not everyone was happy with this fairy tale. Kolvenik's partner at Velo-Granell Industries didn't approve of his obsession. He was afraid that Kolvenik might make use of some of the company's funds to finance his feverish project of turning the Teatro Real into the eighth wonder of the modern world. He wasn't far off the mark. As if this weren't enough, rumours started to circulate round Barcelona about Kolvenik's rather unorthodox habits. Doubts arose concerning his past and the image of a self-made man he liked to project. Most of these rumours died before they reached the press, thanks to Velo-Granell's implacable legal machinery. Money doesn't buy happiness, Kolvenik used to say, but it buys everything else.

For their part, Sergei and Tatiana Glazunow, Eva Irinova's sinister guardians, saw all this as a threat to their future. No room was being built for either of them in the new mansion. Foreseeing a problem with the twins, Kolvenik offered them a generous sum to terminate their supposed contract with Irinova. In exchange they had to leave the country and promise never to return or try to get in touch with Eva. Aroused to fury, Sergei flatly refused such a proposition and swore Kolvenik would never get rid of him or his sister.

That very night, in the small hours before dawn, just as Sergei and Tatiana were leaving a building on Calle Sant Pau, a burst of gunshots fired from a carriage almost ended their lives. The attack was attributed to a group of anarchists. A week later the twins signed the doc.u.ment whereby they undertook to release Eva and disappear for ever. The date for the wedding between Mijail Kolvenik and Eva Irinova was fixed for 24 June 1935. The setting: Barcelona Cathedral.

The ceremony, which some people compared to the coronation of King Alfonso XIII, took place on a brilliant sunny morning. Crowds filled every corner of the avenue leading to the cathedral, anxious to immerse themselves in the lavishness and splendour of the occasion. Eva Irinova had never looked so dazzling. To the strains of Wagner's wedding march, played by the orchestra of the Liceo on the cathedral steps, the bride and bridegroom walked down towards the waiting carriage. When they were barely three metres away from the coach drawn by white horses, a figure broke through the police cordon and threw himself on the newlyweds. There were shouts of panic. When he turned round, Kolvenik faced the bloodshot eyes of Sergei Glazunow. n.o.body present would ever forget what happened next. Glazunow pulled out a gla.s.s bottle and threw the contents in Eva Irinova's face. Like a curtain of steam, the acid burned through the veil. A shriek seemed to rip the skies open. The crowd of onlookers whirled about in confusion and in a flash the attacker was lost among them.

Kolvenik knelt down by the bride and took her in his arms. Eva Irinova's features were melting away under the acid like a freshly painted watercolour fading under water. The smoking skin fell off like charred parchment and the stench of burned flesh filled the air. The acid hadn't reached the young woman's eyes. They revealed all the horror and the agony. Kolvenik tried to save his wife's face by pressing his hands on it. All he achieved was to pull off bits of dead tissue as the acid burned through his gloves. When at last Eva lost consciousness, her face had become a grotesque mask of bone and raw flesh.

The renovated Teatro Real never opened its doors. After the tragedy Kolvenik took his wife to the unfinished mansion in Guell Park. Eva Irinova would never set foot outside that house again. The acid had completely destroyed her face and damaged her vocal cords. People said she communicated by means of notes written on a pad and that she spent entire weeks without leaving her rooms.

By then the financial problems at Velo-Granell Industries had begun to surface and were more serious than had at first been suspected. Kolvenik felt cornered and soon stopped going to the firm. It was rumoured that he'd picked up some strange illness that kept him increasingly confined to his mansion. Numerous irregularities in the Velo-Granell management came to light, as well as a number of strange transactions carried out in the past by Kolvenik himself. Gossip and malicious accusations reared their ugly heads. Secluded in his refuge with his beloved Eva, Kolvenik slowly turned into a character straight out of a dark legend. A pariah. The government expropriated the Velo-Granell partnership and the legal authorities were investigating the case: with its one-thousand-page dossier, the investigation had only just begun.

In the years that followed, Kolvenik lost his fortune. His mansion became a shadowy castle in ruins. After months without pay, the servants abandoned the couple. Only Kolvenik's personal chauffeur remained loyal. All kinds of horrific rumours started to spread. It was said that Kolvenik and his wife lived among rats, wandering through the corridors of the tomb in which they had buried themselves alive.

In December 1948 a fire devoured the Kolveniks' mansion. The flames could be seen from as far away as Mataro, or so the papers stated. Those who remember it swear that the skies of Barcelona turned into a scarlet canvas and clouds of ash swept through the city at dawn while the crowds gazed in silence at the smoking skeleton of the ruins. The charred bodies of Kolvenik and Eva were discovered in the attic, locked in an embrace. The image appeared on the front page of La Vanguardia under the headline: THE END OF AN ERA.

By early 1949 Barcelona had already started to forget the story of Mijail Kolvenik and Eva Irinova. The great metropolis was changing irrevocably and the mystery of Velo-Granell Industries belonged to a legendary past, for ever condemned to oblivion.

CHAPTER 11.

BENJAMiN SENTiS'S ACCOUNT STAYED WITH ME ALL week like a furtive shadow. The more I thought about it, the more I had the feeling that there were key pieces missing in his story. What the pieces were and why he might have left them out was another matter. These thoughts gnawed away at me from dawn to dusk while I waited impatiently for German and Marina's return.

In the afternoons, once my cla.s.ses were over, I went along to their house to make sure everything was all right. Kafka was always there, waiting for me by the main entrance, sometimes holding the spoils from a hunt between his claws. I would pour milk into the cat's bowl and we'd chat; that is to say, Kafka drank the milk while I went into a monologue. More than once I felt tempted to take advantage of its owners' absence to explore the house, but I resisted. The echo of their presence could be felt in every corner. I got used to waiting for nightfall in the rambling empty house, feeling the warmth of their invisible company. I would sit in the room with the paintings and spend hours gazing at German Blau's portraits of his wife, painted some fifteen years earlier. I could see an adult Marina in them, the woman she was already becoming. I wondered whether one day I'd be able to create anything as worthy as that. Anything worthy at all.

On Sunday I turned up bright and early at the Estacion de Francia. There were still two hours to go before the express train from Madrid was due. I spent them exploring the building. Under its vaulted ceiling trains and strangers gathered together like pilgrims. I'd always thought that old railway stations were one of the few magical places left in the world, where ghosts of memories and farewells mingled with the start of hundreds of one-way journeys to faraway destinations. 'If I'm ever lost, the place to look for me would be a railway station,' I reflected.

The whistle from the Madrid express train rescued me from my sentimental musings. The train burst into the station at full gallop, making straight for its platform. A groan of brakes flooded the air as the train gradually came to a halt with all the slow deliberation corresponding to its tonnage. Soon the first pa.s.sengers began to appear nameless silhouettes. I looked down the platform with my heart pounding. Dozens of unknown faces filed past. Suddenly I hesitated, thinking I might have got the day wrong, or the train, or the city or the planet. Then I heard an unmistakable voice behind me.

'This is a surprise, dear Oscar. We've missed you.'

'Same here,' I replied, shaking the old painter's hand.

Marina was stepping down from the carriage. She was wearing the same white dress she had on the day she left. She smiled at me silently, her eyes shining.

'How was Madrid?' I asked, taking German's briefcase.

'Beautiful. And seven times larger than the last time I was there,' said German. 'If it doesn't stop growing, one of these days it will spill over the plateau.'

German's voice seemed charged with good humour and energy. I hoped it meant that the news from the doctor at La Paz was encouraging. On our way to the exit, while German chatted away with an astonished porter about the improvements in railway technology, I had the chance to be on my own with Marina. She pressed my hand tightly.

'How did it all go?' I murmured. 'German seems cheerful.'

'Well. Very well. Thanks for coming to meet us.'

'Thank you for coming back,' I said. 'Barcelona seemed very empty these last few days . . . I have lots to tell you.'

We hailed a taxi outside the station, an old Dodge that was noisier than the express train from Madrid. As we drove up the Ramblas, German gazed out at the people, the markets and flower stalls and smiled contentedly.

'They can say what they like, Oscar, but there isn't another street like this one in any city in the world. Nothing can compare.'

Marina agreed with her father's comments. He seemed revived and younger after the trip.

'Isn't tomorrow a holiday?' German asked out of the blue.

'Yes,' I said.

'So you don't have cla.s.ses . . .'

'Technically, no . . .'

German burst out laughing and for a second I thought I could glimpse the boy he had once been, decades ago.

'And tell me, my good friend, are you very busy tomorrow?'

By eight in the morning I was already at their house, just as German had requested. The previous night I'd promised my tutor that I would spend twice as many hours studying every evening of that week, if as it was a holiday he'd allow me go out on Monday.

'I don't know what you've been up to recently. This isn't a hotel, but it isn't a prison either. Your behaviour is your own responsibility . . .' Father Segui remarked suspiciously. 'I suppose you know what you're doing, Oscar.'

When I reached the Sarria villa I found Marina in the kitchen preparing a basket with sandwiches and Thermos flasks with drinks. Kafka followed her movements carefully, licking his chops.

'Where are we going?' I asked, intrigued.

'Surprise,' said Marina.

Shortly afterwards German appeared, dressed like a rally driver from the 1920s, looking euphoric and jovial. He shook my hand and asked me whether I could help him in the garage. I nodded. I didn't realise they had a garage. In fact, they had three, as I saw when I walked round the property with him.

'I'm glad you were able to join us, Oscar.'

German stopped in front of the third garage door, a shed the size of a small house, covered in ivy. The metal bar squeaked when we lifted it to open the door and a cloud of dust filled the darkness inside. The place looked as if it had been closed for twenty years. It contained the remains of an old motorcycle, rusty tools and boxes piled up under a blanket of dirt as thick as a Persian carpet. Then I glimpsed a grey piece of canvas covering what looked like a car. German took one end of the canvas and gestured to me to do the same.

'Count to three?' he asked.

At his signal we both gave a strong tug and the canvas came off like a silk veil. When the cloud of dust had scattered in the breeze, the faint light filtering through the trees revealed a vision. A stunning wine-coloured 1940s Tucker with chrome wheels slept inside that cave. I stared at German in astonishment. He smiled proudly.

'They don't make cars like this one any more, Oscar.'

'Will it start?' I asked, staring at what looked to me like a museum piece.

'What you see here is a Tucker, Oscar. It doesn't just start. It eases into a canter.'

An hour later we were cruising along the coastal road. German sat in the driver's seat like a pioneer of early motoring with a million-dollar smile. Marina and I sat next to him, in the front. Kafka had the whole of the back seat to himself and slept peacefully. All the other cars overtook us, but their pa.s.sengers turned round to stare at the Tucker in astonishment and admiration.

'Where there is cla.s.s, speed is a minor detail,' German explained.

We were nearing Blanes, and I still didn't know where we were going. German was concentrating on his driving and I didn't want to bother him. He drove with the same politeness that characterised everything he did, giving way even to crawling ants and waving to cyclists, pedestrians and Civil Guard motorcyclists. After Blanes a signpost indicated the seaside village of Tossa de Mar. I turned to look at Marina and she winked at me. I thought we might be going to the old Tossa Castle perched on the cliffs, but the Tucker circled the village and took the narrow road that continued northwards, following the coast: it was more like a ribbon than a road, suspended between the sky and the cliffs, curling round hundreds of sharp bends. Through the branches of the pine trees that hugged the steep slopes the sea could be seen extending like a carpet of incandescent blue. A hundred metres below, dozens of remote coves and inlets sketched a secret route between Tossa de Mar and the cape of Punta Prima, next to the port of Sant Feliu de Guixols, some twenty kilometres ahead.

After driving on for another twenty minutes or so, German stopped the car by the side of the road. Marina looked at me as if to signal that we had arrived. We stepped out of the car and Kafka wandered off towards the pine trees as if he knew the way. While German was checking the Tucker's handbrake to make sure the car wasn't going to roll down the hill, Marina walked over to the edge of a slope that tumbled down to the sea. I joined her and gazed at the view. At our feet a cove in the shape of a crescent moon curved round an expanse of transparent blue sea. Beyond it, low rocks and beaches formed an arc as far as Punta Prima, where the country chapel of Sant Elm could be seen standing like a sentinel on the hilltop.

'Come on, let's go,' Marina urged me.

I followed her through the pines. The path cut across the grounds of an old abandoned house now entirely overgrown with bushes. From there a series of steps hollowed into the rocks led us down to a beach of golden pebbles. A flock of gulls took to the sky when they saw us, retreating to the cliffs that crowned the cove and formed what looked like a cathedral of rock, sea and light. The water of the cove was so clear one could see all the ripple lines of the sand beneath its surface. In the centre the tip of a rock rose up like the prow of a ship that had run aground. The smell of the sea was intense and a salty breeze combed the coast. Marina's gaze was lost in the silvery mist of the horizon.

'This is my favourite place in the world,' she said.

Marina insisted on showing me every nook and cranny along the cliffs. It didn't take me long to realise that I was likely to end up cracking my head open or falling head first into the sea.

'I thrive on the plain. I'm not a goat,' I remarked, trying to add a touch of sanity to our ropeless mountaineering.

Ignoring my pleas, Marina climbed up walls smoothed by the sea and slid through holes where the swell could be heard breathing like a stone whale. I knew I was in danger of losing face and kept thinking that at any moment fate would strike with the full force of the laws of gravity. My forecast didn't take long to come true. Marina had jumped to the other side of a tiny islet to inspect a cave among the rocks. I told myself that if she could do it, I'd better give it a try too. A second later my clumsy legs were plunging into the Mediterranean Sea. I shook with cold and embarra.s.sment. From the rocks Marina stared at me in alarm.

'I'm all right,' I moaned. 'I didn't hurt myself.'

'Is it cold?'

'Oh no,' I stammered. 'It's as warm as a bath.'

Marina smiled and before my astonished eyes removed her white dress and dived into the lagoon. She surfaced next to me, laughing. It was madness at that time of the year, but I decided to imitate her. We swam with energetic strokes and then lay down in the sun on the warm pebbles. I could feel my heart racing, though I couldn't be sure whether it was due to the icy water or to the near-transparency of Marina's wet underwear. She caught me looking at her and got up to fetch her dress, which was lying on the nearby rocks. I watched her step over the pebbles, every muscle in her body visible under her damp skin as she jumped from rock to rock. I licked my salty lips, then realised I was as hungry as a wolf.

We spent the rest of the afternoon on that beach, hidden away from the world, devouring the sandwiches from the basket while Marina narrated the peculiar story of the woman who owned the farmhouse we'd seen abandoned among the pine trees.

The house had belonged to a Dutch writer who suffered from a rare illness that was slowly making her blind. Aware of her fate, she decided to build herself a shelter on the cliff top where she could retire and spend her last days of light facing the beach and gazing at the sea.

'She lived here alone, her only companions being an Alsatian called Sacha, and her favourite books,' Marina explained. 'When she lost her sight altogether, knowing that her eyes would never see another sunrise over the sea, she asked some fishermen who used to drop anchor in the cove to take care of Sacha. A few days later, at dawn, she took a rowing boat and rowed out to sea. She was never seen again.'

For some reason I suspected that the story of the Dutch writer was an invention of Marina's, and I told her so.

'Sometimes, the things that are most real only happen in one's imagination, Oscar,' she said. 'We only remember what never really happened.'

German had fallen asleep with his hat over his face and Kafka at his feet. Marina looked sadly at her father. Taking advantage of German's nap, I clutched her hand and together we walked off to the other end of the beach. There, sitting on a long rock smoothed by the waves, I told her all the things that had happened during her absence. I didn't leave anything out, from the strange appearance of the lady in black at the station, to Benjamin Sentis's story of Mijail Kolvenik and the Velo-Granell firm. I even described the ominous apparition I'd witnessed during that stormy night in the Sarria house. She listened to me in silence, absent, her eyes fixed on the small whirlpools of water at her feet. We remained there for a while, quietly gazing at the faraway outline of the hilltop chapel.

'What did the doctor at La Paz say?' I asked at last.

Marina looked up. The sun was beginning its descent and an amber glow illuminated her tearful eyes.

'That there isn't much time left . . .'

I turned and saw German waving to us. I felt my heart shrink and an unbearable knot seemed to tighten round my throat.

'He doesn't believe it,' said Marina. 'It's better that way.'

When I turned back I noticed she was quickly drying her tears with a cheerful gesture. I realised I was looking straight into her eyes and, without knowing where I found the courage, I leaned over her, searching for her mouth. Marina placed her fingers on my lips and stroked my face, gently rejecting me. A second later she stood up and I watched her walk away. I sighed.