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

association of ideas seemed to me both grotesque and downright improbable.
    â€œWell, I think you play beautifully.”
    â€œNo I don’t. My uncle is a real music enthusiast, and he’s even hired a music teacher to mend my ways—a young composer who shows a lot of promise called Adrián Neri. He’s studied in Paris and Vienna. You’ve got to meet him. He’s writing a symphony that is going to have its premiere with the Barcelona City Orchestra—his uncle sits on the management board. He’s a genius.”
    â€œThe uncle or the nephew?”
    â€œDon’t be wicked, Daniel. I’m sure you’ll really fall for Adrián.”
    More likely he’ll fall on me like a grand piano plummeting down from the seventh floor, I thought.
    â€œWould you like a snack?” Clara offered. “Bernarda makes the most breathtaking cinnamon sponge cakes.”
    We took our afternoon snack like royalty, wolfing down everything the maid put before us. I had no idea about the protocol for this unfamiliar occasion and was not sure how to behave. Clara, who always seemed to know what I was thinking, suggested that I read from The Shadow of the Wind whenever I liked and that, while we were at it, I might as well start at the beginning. And so, trying to sound like one of those pompous voices on Radio Nacional that recited patriotic vignettes after the midday Angelus, I threw myself into revisiting the text of the novel. My voice, rather stiff at first, slowly became more relaxed, and soon I forgot myself and was submerged once more in the narrative, discovering cadences and turns of phrase that flowed like musical motifs, riddles made of timbre and pauses I had not noticed during my first reading. New details, strands of images, and fantasy appeared between the lines and new shapes revealed themselves, as in the structure of a building looked at from different angles. I read for about an hour, getting through five chapters, until my throat felt dry and half a dozen clocks chimed throughout the apartment, reminding me that it was getting late. I closed the book and observed that Clara was smiling at me calmly.
    â€œIt reminds me a bit of The Red House, ” she said. “But this story seems less somber.”
    â€œDon’t you believe it,” I said. “This is just the beginning. Later on, things get complicated.”
    â€œYou have to go, don’t you?” Clara asked.
    â€œI’m afraid so. It’s not that I want to, but…”
    â€œIf you have nothing else to do, you could come back tomorrow,” she suggested. “But I don’t want to take advantage of you….”
    â€œSix o’clock?” I offered. “That way we’ll have more time.”
    That meeting in the music room of the Plaza Real apartment was the first of many more throughout the summer of 1945 and the years to follow. Soon my visits to the Barcelós became almost daily, except for Tuesdays and Thursdays, when Clara had music lessons with Adrián Neri. I spent long hours there, and in time I memorized every room, every passageway, and every plant in Don Gustavo’s forest. The Shadow of the Wind lasted us about a fortnight, but we had no trouble in finding successors with which to fill our reading hours. Barceló owned a fabulous library, and, for want of more Julián Carax titles, we ambled through dozens of minor classics and major bagatelles. Some afternoons we barely read, and spent our time just talking or even going out for a walk around the 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 façades, 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