Alicia turned to her younger brother and tried to look him in the eye. He raised his eyebrows the same way Maximilian Carver did, and she saw the reflections in his grey eyes, the bundle of nerves buried just beneath the surface of his skin.
Alicia put her arm round Max and kissed him on the cheek.
‘Let’s go in,’ she said, shaking off the sand that had stuck to her dress. ‘It’s cold out here.’
9
By the time they reached the path that led up to the lighthouse, Max felt as if his legs had turned to butter. Before setting off, Alicia had offered to take the other bicycle that lay sleeping among the shadows of the garden shed, but Max had rejected the idea: he would take her on his bike just as Roland had done the day before. A kilometre on, he was already regretting his decision.
As if he’d guessed how painfully difficult the long ride would be, Roland was waiting with his bicycle at the foot of the path. When he saw him, Max stopped pedalling and let his sister off. He took a deep breath and rubbed his muscles, which were in agony.
‘You look like you’ve shrunk a few centimetres, city boy,’ said Roland.
Max decided not to waste his breath responding to the joke. Without saying a word, Alicia climbed onto Roland’s bike and they started up the hill. Max waited a few seconds before pushing off. He knew what he was going to spend his first salary on: a motorbike.
*
The small dining room in the lighthouse cottage smelled of freshly brewed coffee and pipe tobacco. The floor and the walls were lined with dark wood and, apart from a very large bookcase and a few nautical objects that Max was unable to identify, there was barely any other decoration. A wood-burning stove and a table covered with a dark velvet cloth, surrounded by old armchairs of faded leather, were the only luxuries Victor Kray had allowed himself.
Roland asked his friends to sit in the armchairs while he sat on a wooden chair between them. They waited for about five minutes, hardly speaking, listening to the old man’s footsteps on the floor above.
At last, the lighthouse keeper made his appearance. He wasn’t as Max had imagined him. Victor Kray was a man of average height, with pale skin and a generous head of silvery hair crowning a face that did not reflect his real age.
His green, penetrating eyes slowly scanned the faces of the brother and sister, as if he were trying to read their thoughts. Max smiled nervously and Victor Kray smiled back at him, a kind smile that lit up his face.
‘You’re the first visitors I’ve had in years,’ said the lighthouse keeper, taking a seat on one of the armchairs. ‘You’ll have to forgive my manners. Anyhow, when I was a child, I thought all this business about the polite way of doing things was a lot of nonsense. I still do.’
‘We’re not children, Granddad,’ said Roland.
‘Anyone younger than me is a baby,’ replied Victor Kray. ‘You must be Alicia. And you’re Max. You don’t need much of a brain to work that out.’
Alicia smiled warmly. She’d only known the old man for a couple of minutes, but already she was charmed by the way he put them at ease. Max, meanwhile, was studying Victor’s face and trying to imagine him shut away in that lighthouse for decades, guarding the secret of the Orpheus.
‘I know what you must be thinking,’ Victor Kray continued. ‘Is everything we’ve seen or thought we’ve seen during these last couple of days real? Is it true? To be honest, I never imagined the day would come when I’d have to talk about this to anyone, not even Roland. But things often turn out differently from the way we expect. Don’t you agree?’
Nobody replied.
‘Right. Let’s get straight to the point. First of all you must tell me everything you know. And when I say everything, I mean everything. Including details that might seem insignificant to you. Everything. Do you understand?’
Max looked at the others.
‘Shall I go first?’
Alicia and Roland nodded. Victor Kray gestured to him to begin his story.
*
During the next half-hour, Max recounted everything he remembered, without a pause. The eyes of the old man were attentive as he listened to Max’s words without the slightest hint of disbelief or – as Max was expecting – surprise.
When he had finished his story, Victor Kray took out his pipe and began to pack it with tobacco.
‘Not bad,’ he muttered, ‘not bad…’
The lighthouse keeper lit his pipe and a cloud of sweet-smelling smoke enveloped the room. He took a few puffs of his special tobacco and sat back in his armchair. Then, looking the three friends in the eye, he began to speak…
*
‘I’ll be seventy-two this autumn, and although people say I don’t look my age, every year weighs on my back like a tombstone. Age makes you notice certain things. For example, I now know that a man’s life is broadly divided into three periods. During the first, it doesn’t even occur to us that one day we will grow old; we don’t think that time passes or that from the day we are born we’re all walking towards a common end. After the first years of youth comes the second period, in which a person becomes aware of the fragility of life and what begins like a simple niggling doubt rises inside you like a flood of uncertainties that will stay with you for the rest of your days. Finally, towards the end of life, we reach the period of acceptance and, consequently, of resignation – a time of waiting. Throughout my life I’ve known quite a few people who have become trapped in one of these stages and have never managed to get beyond them. It’s a terrible thing.’
Victor Kray noticed they were listening intently, but they seemed to be slightly puzzled, wondering where he was going with all this. He stopped to enjoy another puff of his pipe and beamed at his audience.
‘This is a path we must all learn to follow on our own, praying we won’t lose our way before reaching the end. If, at the beginning of our lives, we were able to understand this apparently simple fact, we would be spared many of the miseries and pains of this world. But – and this is one of the great paradoxes of the universe – we are only granted this knowledge when it is already too late. Here endeth the lesson.
‘You’ll wonder why I’m telling you all this. Let me explain. One time in a million, someone who is still very young understands that life is a one-way journey and decides that the rules of the game don’t agree with him. It’s like when you decide to cheat because you know you can’t win. Usually you’re found out and you can’t cheat any more. But sometimes the cheat gets away with it. And if, instead of playing with dice or cards, the game consists of playing with life and death, then the cheat turns into someone very dangerous indeed.
‘A long time ago, when I was your age, one of the greatest cheats who ever set foot on this earth happened to cross my path. I never discovered his real name. In the poor area where I lived, all the kids on the street knew him as Cain. Others called him the Prince of Mist, because, as rumour had it, he always appeared out of the thick haze that covered the streets and alleyways at night and before dawn he disappeared again into the shadows.
‘Cain was a good-looking young man, but nobody seemed to know where he’d come from. Every night, in one of the many alleyways of our area, he gathered the local youngsters together – all of them ragged and covered in grime and soot from the factories – and he would propose a pact. Each child could make a wish and Cain would make it come true. In exchange, he asked for one thing only: complete loyalty. One night, Angus, my best friend, took me to one of Cain’s meetings. Cain was dressed like a gentleman who’d come straight from the opera, and he never stopped smiling. His eyes seemed to change colour in the dark and his voice was deep and measured. According to the other boys, Cain was a magician. I hadn’t believed a single word of the stories circulating about him, and that night I went along fully intending to have a laugh at this supposed magician. And yet I remember that, in his presence, any desire to make fun of him immediately vanished into thin air. As soon as I saw him, the only emotion I felt was fear and I was careful not to open my mouth. That night a few of the lads from the street made their wishes known to Cain. When they’d finished, Cain turned his icy eyes to the corner where my friend
