The Cemetery of Forgotten Books, #2
The Angel's Game
by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
Contents
Chapter 40
Overview
David and Cristina quietly tour a melancholic Barcelona, then plan to flee to Paris the next day. Their intimacy gives way to unease when Cristina confronts David about the mysterious commission and later tries to read his hidden manuscript. David stops her, straining trust as he leaves to buy tickets.
Summary
As the storm clears, David and Cristina wander Barcelona in silence, ending opposite Sempere & Sons, where they watch Isabella, Sempere’s son, and Señor Sempere through the window. David admits the shop has given him most of his life’s good things and dreads saying goodbye.
Back at the tower house, their urgency turns physical, but afterwards Cristina raises Isabella’s worries about David’s mysterious foreign patron. David insists he has abandoned the commission, deflects questions, and refuses Cristina’s request to read the draft, despite her belief that fiction reveals his truth.
They set plans to leave on a midday train to Paris and discuss lodging near the Luxembourg Gardens. David is haunted by fear of Andreas Corelli and dreams he misses the train as Cristina disappears, foreshadowing loss. At dawn he wakes to light from the study and finds Cristina opening the trunk with the manuscript.
When Cristina tries to read it, David intervenes, reties the folder, and returns it to the trunk. The moment cools her trust; she becomes distant. Seeking to steady their plan, David proposes to buy tickets and withdraw money, asks Cristina to pack, promises they will be in Paris by tomorrow night, and leaves the house.
Who Appears
- David MartínNarrator; plans escape to Paris, deflects questions about the commission, stops Cristina from reading his manuscript.
- CristinaDavid’s love; worries via Isabella’s warnings, seeks the truth in his manuscript, grows distant after he refuses.
- IsabellaObserved at Sempere’s; has warned Cristina about David’s dangerous patron and secretive commission.
- Señor SempereElder bookseller; watched in the shop, a quiet symbol of David’s attachments to Barcelona.
- Sempere’s sonHelps in the shop; glimpsed admiring Isabella, part of the scene David struggles to leave behind.
- Andreas CorelliThe ‘boss’; offstage but looming, the feared patron whose commission David claims to abandon.