Sempere, I would kill if I had to. Just say the name, and I'll get rid of the man before he knows what's hit him.'
'It won't come to that. What I wanted to offer you was a job in the bookshop. It consists of looking for rare books for our clients. It's almost like literary archaeology, and it would be just as important for you to know the classics as basic black-market techniques. I can't pay you much at present, but you can eat at our table and, until we find you a good pension, you can stay here with us, in the apartment, if that's all right with you.'
The beggar looked at both of us, dumbfounded.
'What do you say?' asked my father. 'Will you join the team?'
I thought he was going to say something, but at that moment Fermin Romero de Torres burst into tears.
With his first wages, Fermin Romero de Torres bought himself a glamorous hat and a pair of galoshes and insisted on treating me and my father to a dish of bull's tail, which was served on Mondays in a restaurant a couple of blocks away from the Monumental bull ring. My father had found him a room in a pension in Calle Joaquin Costa, where, thanks to the friendship between our neighbour Merceditas and the landlady, we were able to avoid filling in the guest form required by the police, thus removing Fermin Romero de Torres from under the nose of Inspector Fumero and his henchmen. Sometimes I thought about the terrible scars that covered his body and felt tempted to ask him about them, fearing that perhaps Inspector Fumero might have something to do with them. But there was a look in the eyes of that poor man that made me think it was better not to bring up the subject. Perhaps he would tell us one day, when he felt the time was right. Every morning, at seven on the dot, Fermin waited for us by the shop door with a smile on his face, neatly turned out and ready to work an unbroken twelve-hour shift, or even longer. He had discovered a passion for chocolate and Swiss rolls - which did not lessen his enthusiasm for the great names of Greek tragedy - and this meant he had put on a little weight, which was welcome. He shaved like a young swell, combed his hair back with brilliantine, and was growing a pencil moustache to look fashionable. Thirty days after emerging from our bathtub, the ex-beggar was unrecognizable. But despite his spectacular change, where Fermin Romero de Torres had really left us open-mouthed was on the battlefield. His sleuthlike instincts, which I had attributed to delirious fantasies, proved surgically precise. He could solve the strangest requests in a matter of days, even hours. Was there no title he didn't know, no stratagem for obtaining it at a good price that didn't occur to him? He could talk his way into the private libraries of duchesses on Avenida Pearson and horse-riding dilettantes, always adopting fictitious identities, and would depart with the said books as gifts or bought for a pittance.
The transformation from beggar into model citizen seemed miraculous, like one of those stories that priests from poor parishes love to tell to illustrate the Lord's infinite mercy - stories that invariably sound too good to be true, like the ads for hair-restorer lotions that were plastered over the trams.
Three and a half months after Fermin started work in the bookshop, the telephone in the apartment on Calle Santa Ana woke us up one Sunday at two o'clock in the morning. It was Fermin's landlady. In a voice choked with anxiety, she explained that Senor Romero de Torres had locked himself in his room and was shouting like a madman, banging on the walls and swearing that if anyone dared come in, he would slit his own throat with a broken bottle.
'Don't call the police, please. We'll be right there.'
Rushing out, we made our way towards Calle Joaquin Costa. It was a cold night, with an icy wind and tar-black skies. We hurried past the two ancient hospices - Casa de la Misericordia and Casa de Piedad -ignoring
'It won't come to that. What I wanted to offer you was a job in the bookshop. It consists of looking for rare books for our clients. It's almost like literary archaeology, and it would be just as important for you to know the classics as basic black-market techniques. I can't pay you much at present, but you can eat at our table and, until we find you a good pension, you can stay here with us, in the apartment, if that's all right with you.'
The beggar looked at both of us, dumbfounded.
'What do you say?' asked my father. 'Will you join the team?'
I thought he was going to say something, but at that moment Fermin Romero de Torres burst into tears.
With his first wages, Fermin Romero de Torres bought himself a glamorous hat and a pair of galoshes and insisted on treating me and my father to a dish of bull's tail, which was served on Mondays in a restaurant a couple of blocks away from the Monumental bull ring. My father had found him a room in a pension in Calle Joaquin Costa, where, thanks to the friendship between our neighbour Merceditas and the landlady, we were able to avoid filling in the guest form required by the police, thus removing Fermin Romero de Torres from under the nose of Inspector Fumero and his henchmen. Sometimes I thought about the terrible scars that covered his body and felt tempted to ask him about them, fearing that perhaps Inspector Fumero might have something to do with them. But there was a look in the eyes of that poor man that made me think it was better not to bring up the subject. Perhaps he would tell us one day, when he felt the time was right. Every morning, at seven on the dot, Fermin waited for us by the shop door with a smile on his face, neatly turned out and ready to work an unbroken twelve-hour shift, or even longer. He had discovered a passion for chocolate and Swiss rolls - which did not lessen his enthusiasm for the great names of Greek tragedy - and this meant he had put on a little weight, which was welcome. He shaved like a young swell, combed his hair back with brilliantine, and was growing a pencil moustache to look fashionable. Thirty days after emerging from our bathtub, the ex-beggar was unrecognizable. But despite his spectacular change, where Fermin Romero de Torres had really left us open-mouthed was on the battlefield. His sleuthlike instincts, which I had attributed to delirious fantasies, proved surgically precise. He could solve the strangest requests in a matter of days, even hours. Was there no title he didn't know, no stratagem for obtaining it at a good price that didn't occur to him? He could talk his way into the private libraries of duchesses on Avenida Pearson and horse-riding dilettantes, always adopting fictitious identities, and would depart with the said books as gifts or bought for a pittance.
The transformation from beggar into model citizen seemed miraculous, like one of those stories that priests from poor parishes love to tell to illustrate the Lord's infinite mercy - stories that invariably sound too good to be true, like the ads for hair-restorer lotions that were plastered over the trams.
Three and a half months after Fermin started work in the bookshop, the telephone in the apartment on Calle Santa Ana woke us up one Sunday at two o'clock in the morning. It was Fermin's landlady. In a voice choked with anxiety, she explained that Senor Romero de Torres had locked himself in his room and was shouting like a madman, banging on the walls and swearing that if anyone dared come in, he would slit his own throat with a broken bottle.
'Don't call the police, please. We'll be right there.'
Rushing out, we made our way towards Calle Joaquin Costa. It was a cold night, with an icy wind and tar-black skies. We hurried past the two ancient hospices - Casa de la Misericordia and Casa de Piedad -ignoring
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