Carlos Zafón - The Angel's Game

She shook her head again.

‘David, look at me.’

I sat on the edge of the bed and met her gaze.

‘You must destroy it,’ she said.

‘I don’t understand.’

‘You must destroy it.’

‘What must I destroy?’

‘The book.’

‘Cristina, I’d better call the doctor-’

‘No. Listen to me.’

She grabbed my hand.

‘The morning you went to buy the tickets, do you remember? I went up to your study again and opened the trunk.’

I took a breath.

‘I found the manuscript and began to read it.’

‘It’s just a fable, Cristina…’

‘Don’t lie to me. I’ve read it, David. At least enough to know that I had to destroy it…’

‘You don’t need to worry about that now. I told you: I’ve abandoned the manuscript.’

‘But it hasn’t abandoned you. I tried to burn it…’

For a moment I let go of her hand when I heard those words, repressing the surge of anger I felt when I remembered the burned matches I’d found on the floor of the study.

‘You tried to burn it?’

‘But I couldn’t,’ she muttered. ‘There was someone else in the house.’

‘There was no one in the house, Cristina. Nobody.’

‘As soon as I lit the match and held it close to the manuscript, I sensed him behind me. I felt a blow to the back of my neck and then I fell.’

‘Who hit you?’

‘It was all very dark, as if the daylight had suddenly vanished. I turned round but could only see his eyes. Like the eyes of a wolf.’

‘Cristina…’

‘He took the manuscript from my hands and put it back in the trunk.’

‘Cristina, you’re not well. Let me call the doctor…’

‘You’re not listening to me.’

I smiled at her and kissed her on the forehead.

‘Of course I’m listening to you. But there was no one else in the house.’

She closed her eyes and tilted her head, moaning as if my words were like daggers cutting her inside.

‘I’m going to call the doctor.’

I bent over to kiss her again and then stood up. I went towards the door, feeling her eyes on my back.

‘Coward,’ she said.

When I came back to the room with Doctor Sanjuán, Cristina had undone the last strap and was staggering round the room towards the door, leaving bloody footprints on the white tiles. We laid her back on the bed and held her down. Cristina shouted and fought with such anger it made my blood freeze. The noise alerted the other staff. An orderly helped us restrain her while the doctor tied the straps. Once she was immobilised, the doctor looked at me severely.

‘I’m going to sedate her again. Stay here and this time don’t even think of untying her straps.’

I was left alone with her for a moment but could not calm her. Cristina went on fighting to escape. I held her face and tried to catch her eye.

‘Cristina, please-’

She spat at me.

‘Go away.’

The doctor returned with a nurse who carried a metal tray with a syringe, dressings, and a glass bottle containing a yellowish solution.

‘Leave the room,’ he ordered.

I went to the doorway. The nurse held Cristina against the bed and the doctor injected the sedative into her arm. Cristina’s shrieks pierced the room. I covered my ears and went out into the corridor.

Coward, I told myself. Coward.

Beyond Villa San Antonio, a tree-lined path led out of the village, following an irrigation channel. The framed map in the hotel dining room bestowed on it the sugary name of Lovers’ Lane. That afternoon, after leaving the sanatorium, I ventured down the gloomy path, which was more suggestive of loneliness than romance. I walked for about half an hour without meeting a soul, leaving the village behind, until the sharp outline of Villa San Antonio and the large rambling houses that surrounded the lake were small cardboard cut-outs on the horizon. I sat on one of the benches dotted along the path and watched the sun setting at the other end of the Cerdanya valley. Some two hundred metres from where I sat, I could see the silhouette of a small, isolated country chapel in the middle of a snow-covered field. Without quite knowing why, I got up and made my way towards it. When I was about a dozen metres away, I noticed that the chapel had no door. The stone walls had been blackened by the flames that had devoured the building. I climbed the steps to what had once been the entrance and went in. The remains of burned pews and loose pieces of timber that had fallen from the ceiling were scattered among the ashes. Weeds had crept into the building and grown up around the former altar. The fading light shone through the narrow stone windows. I sat on what remained of a pew in front of the altar and heard the wind whispering through the cracks in the burned-out vault. I looked up and wished I had even a breath of the faith my old friend Sempere had possessed – his faith in God or in books – with which I could pray to God, or to hell, to give me another chance and let me take Cristina away from that place.

‘Please,’ I murmured, fighting back the tears.

I smiled bitterly, a defeated man pitifully begging a God in whom he had never trusted. I looked around at that holy site filled with nothing but ruins and ashes, emptiness and loneliness, and knew that I would go back to fetch her that very night, with no more miracle or blessing than my own determination to tear her away from the clutches of that faint-hearted, infatuated doctor who had decided to turn her into his own sleeping beauty. I would set fire to the sanatorium rather than allow anyone to touch her again. I would take her home and die by her side. Hatred and anger would light my way.

I left the old chapel at nightfall and crossed the silvery field, which glowed in the moonlight, returning to the tree-lined path. In the dark, I followed the trail of the irrigation channel until I glimpsed the lights of Villa San Antonio in the distance and the citadel of towers and attic windows surrounding the lake. When I reached the sanatorium I didn’t bother to ring the bell next to the wrought-iron gates. After jumping over the wall, I crept across the garden, then went round the building to one of the back entrances. It was locked from the inside but I didn’t hesitate for a moment before smashing the glass with my elbow and grabbing hold of the door handle. I went down the corridor, listening to the voices and whisperings, catching the aroma of broth that rose from the kitchen, until I reached the room at the end where the good doctor had imprisoned Cristina, his fantasy princess, lying forever in a limbo of drugs and straps.

I had expected to find the door locked, but the handle yielded beneath my hand. I pushed the door open and went into the room. The first thing I noticed was that I could see my own breath floating in front of my face. The second thing was that the white-tiled floor was stained with bloody footprints. The large window that overlooked the garden was open and the curtains fluttered in the wind. The bed was empty. I drew closer and picked up one of the leather straps with which the doctor and the orderly had tied Cristina down. They had all been cleanly cut, as if they were made of paper. I went out into the garden and saw a trail of red footprints across the snow. I followed it to the stone wall surrounding the grounds on which I found yet more blood. I climbed up and jumped over to the other side. The erratic footprints led off towards the village. I remember that I began to run.

I followed the tracks as far as the park that bordered the lake. A full moon burned over the large sheet of ice. That is when I saw her. She was limping over the frozen lake, a line of bloodstained footprints behind her, the nightdress covering her body trembling in the breeze. By the time I reached the shore, Cristina had walked about thirty metres towards the centre of the lake. I shouted her name and she stopped. Slowly she turned and I saw her smile as a cobweb of cracks began to weave itself beneath her feet. I jumped onto the ice, feeling the frozen surface buckle, and ran towards her. Cristina stood still, looking at me. The cracks under her feet were expanding into a mesh of black veins. The ice was giving way and I fell flat on my face.