The Twelve Read Online Free PDF Page A

thinner than Roberto. They made an amusing couple, but both were sweet, intelligent, and kind.
    Max spent a good deal of time with Roberto, playing cards and discussing food, music, and architecture. Since Roberto loved to eat, he introduced Max to a great variety of Spanish, Catalan, and Basque delicacies.
    However, Max spent most of his time with the youngest child, Emilia, who was twenty years old and thus closer to his age. She was studying literature at the University of Barcelona, so they talked for hours about the great authors and poets of the world and ventured deeply into philosophical subjects. Emilia was a true sister to Max, and the idea of a romantic relationship never entered the picture. Indeed, she had a very wealthy boyfriend, Quitano, who lived in Madrid but visited every weekend and treated Emilia and Max to the theater, ballet, fine restaurants, and concerts.
    But la señora, the widow of Segovia, was the real showstopper.
    Her husband had created a highly successful medical insurance business but had died prematurely, leaving her with three small children ranging in age from four to eight. In 1956 Spain did not grant equal rights to women, and few—if any—owned businesses. Since Spanish law prohibited single women from owning businesses at all, la señora kept her formal name as the widow of Segovia.
    She was a natural entrepreneur, and in addition to running the insurance company, she had purchased a laundromat, several small general stores, and a weekend beach home on the Costa Brava—the Spanish coast north of Barcelona. She believed in hard work and had inculcated this work ethic in Roberto and Emilia, but not in Alejandro, who was more attracted to glamour and the world of art.
    In every way that Max’s own mother, Jane, had been weak, the widow of Segovia was strong. She was not beautiful but had endless energy and excellent aesthetic taste.
    Julieta, who served as the family’s maid and cook, was almost a second mother to the children. From a poor family in a small village in rural Aragon, she had started working for the family when she was only 16 and was in her late forties when Max came to live with them. She frequently took Max shopping at the open-air market, teaching him how to choose fresh vegetables and pointing out which of the live chickens would make the best meal.
    â€œEste chico es mas listo que el diablo,” she would say to all who would listen. “This boy living with the señora is more clever than the devil!” She said it with such pride, clearly enjoying having this young American boy as her charge, and it made Max smile.
    ***
    In his nine months in Barcelona, Max learned to speak Spanish with an accent as pure as that of any Castilian. He felt a heart-
to-heart connection with the Spanish people in a way he never could when speaking English—which for him always remained
a language of logic and mental gymnastics, but not of deep
emotions.
    He traveled throughout Spain to every major city, became an expert on the Barcelona architect Antoni Gaudi, visited the birthplace of El Greco, marveled at the creation of La Alhambra in Granada, ate goose barnacles in Galicia, walked the ancient streets of Unamuno’s Salamanca, and became even more enamored with the Spanish culture and its love of life, its intensity, and its passion. It all seemed very familiar to him. He felt at home.
    He believed this was where he belonged. In Spain, Max learned to live without fear. He could walk anywhere in the city at any hour of the day or night in complete safety. Franco ruled with an iron hand, and even the red light district had no crime other than prostitution, which was semi-regulated, with condom shops on every corner and cheap hotel rooms above every bar.
    Although Max turned seventeen that winter, he still looked fourteen, and even the prostitutes thought he was too young to touch. One night he and three of his friends decided it was time to lose