The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón Read Free Book Online Page B

square or as far as the cathedral. Clara loved to sit and listen to the murmuring of people in the cloister and guess at the echoes of footsteps in the stone alleyways. She would ask me to describe the facades, the people, the cars, the shops, the lampposts and shop windows that we passed on our way. Often she would take my arm and I would guide her through our own private Barcelona, one that only she and I could see. We always ended up in a milk bar on Calle Petritxol, sharing a bowl of whipped cream or a cup of hot chocolate with sponge fingers. Sometimes people would look at us askance, and more than one know-all waiter referred to her as 'your older sister', but I paid no attention to their taunts and insinuations. Other times, I don't know whether out of malice or morbidity, Clara confided in me, telling me far-fetched secrets that I was not sure how to take. One of her favourite topics concerned a stranger, a person who sometimes came up to her when she was alone in the street and spoke to her in a hoarse voice. This mysterious person, who never mentioned his name, asked her questions about Don Gustavo and even about me. Once he had stroked her throat. Such stories tormented me mercilessly. Another time Clara told me she had begged the supposed stranger to let her read his face with her hands. He did not reply, which she took as a yes. When she raised her hands to his face, he stopped her suddenly, but she still managed to feel what she thought was leather.
     
    'As if he wore a leather mask,' she said.
     
    'You're making that up, Clara.'
     
    Clara would swear again and again that it was true, and I would give up, tortured by the image of that phantom who found pleasure in caressing her swan-like neck - and heaven knows what else - while all I could do was long for it. Had I paused to reflect, I would have understood that my devotion to Clara brought me no more than suffering. Perhaps for that very reason, I adored her all the more, because of the eternal human stupidity of pursuing those who hurt us the most. During that bleak postwar summer, the only thing I feared was the arrival of the new school term, when I would no longer be able to spend all day with Clara.
     
    By dint of seeing me so often around the house, Bernarda, whose severe appearance concealed a doting maternal instinct, became fond of me and, in her own manner, decided to adopt me.
     
    'You can tell this boy hasn't got a mother, sir,' she would say to Barcelo. 'I feel so sorry for him, poor little mite.'
     
    Bernarda had arrived in Barcelona shortly after the war, fleeing from poverty and from a father who on a good day would beat her up and tell her she was stupid, ugly, and a slut, and on a bad one would corner her in the pigsty, drunk, and fondle her until she sobbed with terror -at which point he'd let her go, calling her prudish and stuck up, like her mother. Barcelo had come across Bernarda by chance when she worked in a vegetable stall in the Borne Market and, following his instinct, had offered her a post in his household.
     
    'Ours will be a brand-new Pygmalion,' he announced. 'You shall be my Eliza and I'll be your Professor Higgins.'
     
    Bernarda, whose literary appetite was more than satisfied with the church newsletter, glanced over him. 'I might be poor and ignorant, but I'm decent too,' she said.
     
    Barcelo was not exactly George Bernard Shaw, but even if he had not managed to endow his pupil with the eloquence and spirit of a literary lady, his efforts had refined Bernarda and taught her the manners and speech of a provincial maid. She was twenty-eight, but I always thought she carried ten more years on her back, even if they showed only in her eyes. She was a serial churchgoer with an ecstatic devotion to Our Lady of Lourdes. Every morning she went to the eight o'clock service at the Basilica of Santa Maria del Mar, and she confessed no less than three times a week, four in warm weather. Don Gustavo, who was a confirmed agnostic