The Shadow of the Wind

Nuria writes that she met Julián in the autumn of 1933. At that time she worked for Toni Cabestany, Julián’s Spanish publisher. Every two years, they received a manuscript from Julián, which was his own Spanish translation of a novel he originally wrote in French. Each of Julián’s books was a commercial disaster, with only about 100 of each book sold. Nuria read all of Julián’s books and could not understand why so few were sold.

Nuria protects Julián from someone who calls about once a month asking for his address. She removed his address in Paris from the company’s records. Once when she was performing some billing duties, she saw that a man named Miquel Moliner paid for the publishing of each of Julián’s novels.  

Nuria goes to meet Miquel and a friendship develops between them. Miquel, though he is exceedingly rich, works himself to the bone translating documents and copy editing textbooks. His goal is to spend all of his father’s inheritance, which Miquel considers blood money because it was earned through selling arms, on rebuilding churches, museums, schools, libraries, and hospitals. Miquel falls in love with Nuria, but she did not return his romantic interest, calling him her best friend. Miquel asserted that Nuria was in love with Julián, but she just did not know it yet.

One year, Nuria decided to go pick up the manuscript in person. She stayed with Julián in his small apartment. Julián made up many fantastic stories for Nuria to keep her from asking any personal questions. Nuria’s business in Paris took three days, and at the end of that time, she asked Julián to tell her about “P” to whom he has dedicated all of his novels. Julián told Nuria about Penélope and those 14 years in exile in Paris and that Penélope was the only woman he had ever loved.

Nuria and Julián become lovers, and she extends her trip for two weeks to stay with Julián. She knows that Julián would never love her, and she also knows that she would never love another man the way that she loved Julián. Hopeless, she leaves Paris and Julián to return to Barcelona.

Nuria waits for a while once she returns from Paris before visiting Miquel. However, Miquel knows from looking at her face what had happened. She admits that she maintained her relationship with Miquel only because he knew the truth about Penélope and Julián, and she believed that with enough time and patience that Miquel would tell her the story.

She even allows herself to become Miquel’s lover, out of loneliness and bitterness. She asks Miquel to tell her the truth about Penélope. He does, much to Nuria’s regret.

Miquel knows that Penélope was not going to show up for the train on that day in 1919. Jorge Aldaya had come to see him and had told him about the horrible scenes in his home, once his father found out about Penélope and Julián. He told Miquel that he did not understand his father’s rage; it seemed out of proportion for the events that had occurred. A doctor was summoned to examine Penélope, who had been locked in Jacinta’s room for days. The doctor too was threatened if he ever dared to tell anyone what he knew about Penélope. Miquel knew that Julián would not leave if he told him about Penélope, so he lied to his friend and put him on the train to Paris.

Two weeks later, Jorge Aldaya gives Miquel a letter to forward to Julián, in which Penélope writes that she never loved him and that he should forget her. Miquel went to find Jacinta to determine what he could about Penélope. He discovered that Penélope wrote a letter to Julián, telling the truth, that he never received, which was the letter that Daniel obtained from the caretaker at the old Fortuny/Carax apartment. Miquel also wanted to see Sophie, who was in hiding until her escape to America. Miquel lets Sophie read the letter that Jorge gave him, and she tells Miquel that Penélope and Julián are brother and sister.

Sophie Carax becomes a music teacher in Barcelona after her father died. Soon she meets the hatter, Antoni Fortuny. He pursues her, but she has only feelings of friendship for him. However, she does not have any friends or prospects in Barcelona. She meets Don Ricardo Aldaya, and she immediately knows that she is in danger. Their affair lasts 96 days; Don Aldaya is cruel and seductive, burning and cutting Sophie. Seeing her old self slipping away, she longs to feel herself again or at least that self she sees reflected in the hatter’s eyes. She accepts his marriage proposal.

Years later, Don Ricardo shows up at the hat shop, wanting to meet his son. Julián is the only person in his life who does not cater to his whims, and he admires Julián for this quality. He decides to give Julián the education and attention he needs to take over his empire because his son, Jorge, is such a disappointment to him. Don Ricardo never suspects that Julián only tolerates him so that he can be near Penélope.

His rage overflows when his wife tells him about catching Penélope and Julián together in unmistakable circumstances. However, from the moment that he locks Penélope in Jacinta’s room and begins plotting Julián’s death, he begins dying.

Without any help, Penélope gives birth to a stillborn son in September 1919. Then, Penélope screams and bangs on the door as she hemorrhages to death. When the door is finally opened, Penélope lies in a pool of her own blood holding a blue baby boy. They are buried in the family’s basement crypt.

Jorge and Don Ricardo immigrate to Argentina in 1926, the family fortune gone. Don Ricardo knows that he is dying, and he extracts a promise from Jorge that he will kill Julián. One morning, Jorge cannot find his father. He sees a school of sharks near the boat and his father’s dressing gown on the deck.

Jorge Aldaya returns to Barcelona ten years later, in 1936, blaming Julián Carax for his misfortune and penury. A drunkard who feels that the world has wronged him, Jorge runs into his old school chum, Fumero, and asks him for help and begs Fumero’s forgiveness for how he treated Fumero in the past. Fumero uses Jorge for his own devices, encouraging and nurturing Jorge’s hatred of the now-absent Julián and his old friends, including Miquel Moliner. Fumero, having had a career in prisons and the army, is now a well-known assassin. “Fumero was said to be death itself” (388). Furthermore, he joined the crime squad and pushed his boss to his death during the confusion of a large-scale raid to attain his boss’s position in the police force.

Fumero decides to keep Jorge alive long enough to lure all of Jorge’s old school chums—and Fumero’s enemies—into Fumero’s trap. Only then, after Julián Carax’s death, will Fumero dispatch Jorge from his world of woe and revenge.

In the winter of 1934, Miquel’s brothers manage to evict him from the family home. The house remains vacant, however, because the brothers only wanted to see Miquel suffer homelessness and the loss of everything that they had the power to take from him.

Nuria finds him in a squalid room, dying of tuberculosis. She takes him home and forces him to see a doctor. She and Miquel marry, but they tell no one that they are married.

One day, Jorge Aldaya shows up at Nuria’s apartment, hoping to reunite with Miquel and find out where Julián Carax is. Miquel lies and says that he has no idea where Julián is. Jorge’s health is also terrible, and he says that they are all cursed. As a parting gift, Jorge says that Fumero congratulates them on their marriage. They are terrified, but they do not discuss Fumero or Jorge’s motives.

Despite his severe illness, Miquel works sixteen hours a day writing. He puts all of the money he earns into an account for Nuria. She laments her inability to love Miquel in the way that he loves her, and she berates herself for her useless love for Julián. She wants to spend the rest of her life as Miquel’s wife and forget Julián.

Fumero visits Miquel to tell him that Julián is getting married to his patroness, Irene Marceau, in Paris; he used his police contacts to track Julián down. Two days later, a furious and very sickly Jorge Aldaya appears at their door. Fumero did not tell Jorge that Irene is 20 or 30 years older than Julián or that the marriage is merely a contract, not a real marriage, to enable Irene to give Julián her wealth when she dies. Seething with anger, Jorge intends to find Julián and tell him that Penélope has been waiting for him for all these years, pining for him, and challenge him to a duel on his wedding day. Fumero hands Jorge a pistol that will blow up in his hands, certainly killing him, even if Julián refuses to shoot Jorge. Julián will have no choice but to return to Barcelona to search for Penélope, where Fumero will be waiting for him.

Julián Carax enters Spain just a few days before the Civil War began. The first edition of The Shadow of the Wind has just been published. Irene Marceau writes to tell them that Julián killed Jorge Aldaya in a duel, but the police have been tipped off by Fumero before the event and are pursuing Julián for murder. Julián escapes the French police, but Nuria and Miquel now realize that even if Julián escapes Fumero, the truth about Penélope awaits him to deal out equal tragedy. The war, with its atmosphere of hatred, distrust, and fear, also stalks the people of Barcelona.

Nuria and Miquel search all of the likely places for Julián to hide in Barcelona, but without success. Father Fernando agrees to contact them if he sees Julián. The hat maker insists that his son is dead. Two weeks pass with no sign of Julián, and Miquel hardly sleeps or eats. Miquel slips out one night while Nuria is sleeping, taking all of his belongings with him. He leaves her a note saying that he is going in search of Julián and will soon bring him home, but Nuria knows she will never see Miquel again.

Miquel goes to the abandoned Aldaya mansion after midnight, following up on a tip from a flower vendor who thought he had seen Julián there. Though seventeen years have passed, Miquel recognizes Julián by his walk. The two friends go to a café and discuss what to do next. Julián has been staying with the hatter who recently had a complete change of heart and wants to make up for the past by helping Julián in any way he can. The hatter searches for Penélope Aldaya and finds nothing.

Julián then begins searching for Penélope himself, which resulted in Miquel finding him at the Aldaya mansion. The two friends notice a police car pull up outside the café. Miquel demands that Julián give him his papers, since he has only a short time to live. Miquel tells Julián that Nuria is waiting for him. Miquel watches Julián run down the street as Miquel shoots two of the policemen dead. The third policeman shoots Miquel in the heart, and he is dead before his body hits the ground.

Fumero attends the identification of the body carrying Julián’s passport. The hatter, overwhelmed when he sees Miquel, screams and runs away. Fumero looks at the corpse and sees his old classmate Miquel. Unwittingly, Miquel has offered Fumero the perfect alibi for the later death of the real Julián Carax. Officially, Julián no longer exists: “He was a shadow” (411).

Nuria receives a call at work from the morgue attendant. Overcome with emotion, she rushes home, finding Julián waiting in her apartment. Nuria admits that she is relieved to have Julián, not Miquel, returned to her. They make love and know that they will not be able to look each other in the eye, knowing that they have become amoral, unlikeable people, who have sullied Miquel’s memory.

Nuria and Julián go to the Aldaya mansion. First, they go to the third floor room, Jacinta’s old bedroom, where Julián last saw Penélope. There is nothing left there except for black stains on the floor.

They end up in the basement, where Julián knocks down the brick wall sealing the chamber. Inside, they find two marble tombs: one for Penélope, and one for the stillborn baby, David.

Julián runs out of the Aldaya mansion, hating Nuria and Miquel and even hating his own novels. Julián Carax was dead: Laín Coubert took his place. Nuria finds all of Julián’s novels burned in her apartment. When she goes to work, Mr. Cabestany’s son, who has taken over for his ill father, tells her that a man named Laín Coubert has made an offer for all of Julián Carax’s novels, but that he left when the son demanded more than Coubert offered. Nuria took the copies of the books from the publisher’s library and hid them in the Cemetery of Forgotten books. She watched the flames from the book repository and went there in the morning.

All of the books are gone, along with the entire building. A man is found in the rubble, burned over his entire body. Nuria recognizes Julián, and in the hospital nurses him, waiting for him to die. Julián tells Nuria to leave him, but Julián does not die. A year later, Nuria takes him home with her.

She nurses him, feeding and bathing him, reading to him. As the war continues, and she is unable to find work, she begins selling valuables. Finally, she must sell the magnificent pen once owned by Victor Hugo. Julián starts disappearing at night, bringing home money and jewels. He also continues to break into homes to steal his books and burn them.

The ending of the war brings a fitful peace that absolves no one. Many people participated in one way or another in the denouncing of friends, neighbors, or work colleagues. Nuria cannot find work, so she comes up with a scheme to survive. She writes to Julián’s mother, Sophie, who is married to a prominent doctor in Bogotá. She pretends to be a lawyer representing the estate of Mr. Fortuny and asks for help with the expenses of the apartment as well as administrative fees. With this money, she and Julián are able to survive.

The years pass, and Nuria eventually finds bits of work as a translator. She continues to care for Julián, who is like a child. Fumero sends a young man to the apartment, claiming to be looking for Miquel Moliner. Nuria immediately moves Julián to the Fortuny/Carax apartment, locking him in during the day and spending the nights with him.

Six years after the end of the Civil War, in 1945, Nuria manages to get a job in a publishing house, owned by Pedro Sanmartí—a close, personal friend of Fumero’s. With the help of a friend at work, Mercedes Pietro, Nuria hides whenever Fumero comes to the publishing office to meet his friend for lunch. Sanmartí pursues Nuria relentlessly, and Nuria parries his sexual advances by mentioning her husband, Miquel Moliner, and Sanmartí’s wife. Nothing Nuria does dissuades Sanmartí. One day she runs away from his advances, leaving the building. On her way out, she meets Fumero, who immediately asks her about her husband. The next day rumors are flying at work that Nuria is a lesbian and that she had a communist past. Nuria goes to work one day soon after and finds a man sitting at her desk: the new copyeditor.

Returning home, she tells Julián everything. She hears Julián go out that night, and the next morning Sanmartí is found dead in a park, his neck broken.

Nuria realizes that Julián has lost his mind and that he has been sneaking out without her knowledge the entire time she had locked him in the apartment to keep him safe. As Laín Coubert, Julián wandered the city, seeking vengeance and acting upon his anger and remorse.

Fumero brings Nuria in for questioning in the Sanmartí murder. He slaps her and tells her that he will kill her first and then kill her so-called husband. She is surprised when the police release her after six hours. She goes home to her old apartment, where the police have destroyed all of her belongings. Then, she rushes to the old Fortuny apartment, waiting for Julián to come home. He never does.

She sees him two months later when he sits down next to her at the cinema. He claims that there is another copy of The Shadow of the Wind, and he is referring to the copy that Daniel found in the Cemetery of Forgotten Books. Julián watches Daniel, but he allows Daniel to keep the book because Julián finds Daniel worthy to be the owner of the book. Julián believes that Daniel is like him.

 Nuria discovers that Julián is living in the Aldaya mansion, keeping a watch over Penélope and his son. In his own writings that Julián has unsuccessfully attempted to burn, Nuria discovers Julián’s obsession with Daniel, his spying on Daniel, watching him grow up and fall in love with Bea, in whom he sees another Penélope.

Nuria knows that Fumero will kill her, but she hopes that Daniel will act to save himself from Fumero. She knows that Fumero expects Daniel to lead him, eventually, to Julián.