The Angel's Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafón Read Free Book Online Page A

lightbulb and even told me that I could turn it on, but not for long, because electricity was very expensive. I preferred not to play with fire. That Saturday he tried to buy me a book and went to a bookshop on Calle de la Palla, opposite the old Roman walls—the first and last bookshop he ever entered—but as he couldn’t read the titles on the spines of the hundreds of tomes that were displayed, he came out empty-handed. He gave me some money then, more than usual, and told me to buy whatever I wanted with it. It seemed the perfect moment to bring up something that I’d wanted to say to him for a long time but never found the opportunity.
    “Doña Mariana, my teacher, has asked me whether you could go by the school one day and talk to her,” I said, trying to sound casual.
    “Talk about what? What have you done?”
    “Nothing, Father. Doña Mariana wanted to talk to you about myfuture education. She says I have possibilities and thinks she could help me win a scholarship for a place at the Escolapios—”
    “Who does that woman think she is, filling your head with nonsense and telling you she’s going to get you into a school for rich kids? Have you any idea what that pack is like? Do you know how they’re going to look at you and treat you when they find out where you come from?”
    I looked down.
    “Doña Mariana only wants to help, Father. That’s all. Please don’t get angry. I’ll tell her it’s not possible, and that’s it.”
    My father looked at me angrily, but controlled himself and took a few deep breaths with his eyes shut before speaking again.
    “We’ll manage, do you understand? You and me. Without the charity of those sons of bitches. And with our heads held high.”
    “Yes, Father.”
    He put a hand on my shoulder and looked at me as if, for a split second that was never to repeat, he was proud of me, even though we were so different, even though I liked books that he could not read, even if Mother had left us both to face each other. At that moment I thought my father was the kindest man in the world and that everyone would realize this if only, just for once, life saw fit to deal him a good hand of cards.
    “All the bad things you do in life come back to you, David. And I’ve done a lot of bad things. A lot. But I’ve paid the price. And our luck is going to change. You’ll see.”
    …
    Doña Mariana was razor sharp and could figure out what was going on, but despite her insistence I didn’t mention the subject of my education to my father again. When my teacher realized there was no hope she told me that every day, when lessons were over, she would devote an hour just to me, to talk to me about books, history, and all the things that scared my father so much.
    “It will be our secret,” said the teacher.
    I had begun to understand that my father was ashamed that others might think him ignorant, a residue from a war which, like all wars, was fought in the name of God and country to make a few men who were already far too powerful when they started it even more powerful. Around that time I started occasionally to accompany my father on his night shift. We’d take a tram in Calle Trafalgar that left us by the entrance to the Pueblo Nuevo cemetery. I would stay in his cubicle reading old copies of the newspaper and now and then trying to chat with him, a difficult task. By then, my father hardly ever spoke at all, either about the war in the colonies or about the woman who had abandoned him. Once I asked him why my mother left us. I suspected it had been my fault, something I’d done, perhaps just being born.
    “Your mother had already left me before I was sent to the front. I was the idiot, I didn’t realize until I returned. Life’s like that, David. Sooner or later, everything and everybody abandons you.”
    “I’m never going to abandon you, Father.”
    I thought he was about to cry and I hugged him so as not to see his face.
    The following day, unannounced, my father