The Angel's Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafón

of burned gunpowder. Those were years when one grew up fast, and with childhood slipping out of their hands, many children already had the look of old men.
    With no other family to my name but the dark city of Barcelona, the newspaper became my shelter and my universe until, when I was fourteen, my salary permitted me to rent that room in Doña Carmen’s pension. I had lived there barely a week when the landlady came to my room and told me that a gentleman was asking for me. On the landing stood a man dressed in gray, with a gray expression and a gray voice, who asked me whether I was David Martín. When I nodded, he handed me a parcel wrapped in coarse brown paper, then vanished down the stairs, the trace of his gray absence contaminating my world of poverty. I took the parcel to my room and closed the door. Nobody, except two or three people at the newspaper, knew that I lived there. Intrigued, I removed the wrapping. It was the first package I had ever received. Inside was a wooden case that looked vaguely familiar. I placed it on the narrow bed and opened it. It contained my father’s old pistol, given to him by the army, which he had brought with him when he returned from the Philippines to earn himself an early and miserable death. Next to the pistol was a small cardboard box with bullets. I held the gun and felt its weight. It smelled of gunpowder and oil. I wondered how many men my father had killed with that weapon with which he had probably hoped to end his own life, until someone got there first. I put it back and closed the case. My first impulse wasto throw it in the rubbish bin, but then I realized that it was all I had left of my father. I imagined it had come from the moneylender who, when my father died, had tried to recoup his debts by confiscating what little we had in the old apartment overlooking the Palau de la Música: he had now decided to send me this gruesome souvenir to welcome me to adulthood. I hid the case on top of my cupboard, against the wall, where filth accumulated and where Doña Carmen would not be able to reach it, even with stilts, and I didn’t touch it again for years.
    That afternoon I went back to Sempere & Sons and, feeling I was now a man of the world as well as a man of means, I made it known to the bookseller that I intended to buy that old copy of
Great Expectations
I had been forced to return to him years before.
    “Name your price,” I said. “Charge me for all the books I haven’t paid you for all these years.”
    Sempere, I remember, gave me a wistful smile and put a hand on my shoulder.
    “I sold it this morning,” he confessed.

6
    T hree hundred and sixty-five days after I had written my first story for
The Voice of Industry
I arrived as usual at the newspaper offices but found the place almost deserted. There were just a handful of journalists, colleagues who, months ago, had given me affectionate nicknames and even words of encouragement but who now ignored my greeting and gathered in a circle to whisper among themselves. In less than a minute they had picked up their coats and disappeared as if they feared they would catch something from me. I sat alone in that cavernous room staring at the strange sight of dozens of empty desks. Slow, heavy footsteps behind me announced the approach of Don Basilio.
    “Good evening, Don Basilio. What’s going on here today? Why has everyone left?”
    Don Basilio looked at me sadly and sat at the desk next to mine.
    “There’s a Christmas dinner for the staff. At the Set Portes restaurant,” he said quietly. “I don’t suppose they mentioned anything to you.”
    I feigned a carefree smile and shook my head.
    “Aren’t you going?” I asked.
    Don Basilio shook his head.
    “I’m no longer in the mood.”
    We looked at each other in silence.
    “What if I take you somewhere?” I suggested. “Wherever youfancy. Can Solé, if you like. Just you and me, to celebrate the success of
The Mysteries of Barcelona.”
    Don