The Angel's Game Read Online Free PDF Page B

or absence in her eyes. She let herself be touched and enjoyed the sensations with infinite patience and a tenderness that made me forget how I had come to be there. That night, for the brief space of an hour, I learned every line of her skin as others learn their prayers or their fate. Later, when I had barely any breath left in me, Chloé let me rest my head on her breast, stroking my hair for a long time, in silence, until I fell asleep in her arms with my hand between her thighs.

    When I awoke, the room was still in darkness and Chloé had left. I could no longer feel the touch of her skin on my hands. Instead I was holding a business card printed on the same white parchment as the envelope in which my invitation had arrived. Under the emblem of the angel, it read:
ANDREAS CORELLI
Éditeur
Éditions de la Lumière
Boulevard St.-Germain, 69, Paris
    On the back was a handwritten note:
Dear David, life is filled with great expectations. When you are
ready to make yours come true, get in touch with me. I’ll be
waiting. Your friend and reader,
A.C.
    I gathered my clothes from the floor and got dressed. The door was not locked now. I walked down the corridor to the sitting room, where the gramophone had gone silent. No trace of the girl or the woman with white hair who had greeted me. Complete silence. As I made my way towards the exit I had the feeling that the lights behind me were going out, the corridors and rooms slowly growing dark. I stepped out onto the landing and went down the stairs, returning, unwillingly, to the world. Back on the street, I made my way towards the Ramblas, leaving behind me all the hubbub and the nocturnal crowds. A warm, thin mist floated up from the port and the glow from the large windows of the Hotel Oriente tinged it with a dirty, dusty yellow in which passers-by disappeared like wisps of smoke. I set off as Chloé’s perfume began to fade from my mind, and I wondered whether the lips of Cristina Sagnier, the daughter of Vidal’s chauffeur, might taste the same.

4
    You don’t know what thirst is until you drink for the first time. Three days after my visit to El Ensueño, the memory of Chloé’s skin still burned my very thoughts. Without a word to anyone - especially not to Vidal - I decided to gather up what little savings I had and go back there, hoping it would be enough to buy even just one moment in her arms. It was past midnight when I reached the stairs with the red walls that led up to El Ensueño. The light was out in the stairway and I climbed cautiously, leaving behind the noisy citadel of cabarets, bars, music halls and random establishments which the years of the Great War had strewn along Calle Nou de la Rambla. Only the flickering light from the main door below outlined each stair as I ascended. When I reached the landing I stopped and groped about for the door knocker. My fingers touched the heavy metal ring and, when I lifted it, the door gave way slightly and I realised that it was open. I pushed it gently. A deathly silence caressed my face and a bluish darkness stretched before me. Disconcerted, I advanced a few steps. The echo of the street lights fluttered in the air, revealing fleeting visions of bare walls and broken wooden flooring. I came to the room that I remembered, decorated with velvet and lavish furniture. It was empty. The blanket of dust covering the floor shone like sand in the glimmer from the illuminated signs in the street. I walked on, leaving a trail of footsteps in the dust. No sign of the gramophone, of the armchairs or the pictures. The ceiling had burst open, revealing blackened beams. The paint hung from the walls in strips. I walked over to the corridor that led to the room where I had met Chloé, crossing through a tunnel of darkness until I reached the double door, which was no longer white. There was no handle on it, only a hole in the wood, as if the mechanism had been yanked out. I pushed open the door and went in.
    Chloé’s