The Midnight Palace - Carlos Ruiz Zafon [0]
Cover
Title
Author’s Note
About the Author
Also by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
Dedication
The Return of Darkness
The Last Night of the Chowbar Society
City of Palaces
The Firebird
The Name of Midnight
Copyright
Dear Reader,
The Midnight Palace is the second in a series of novels I wrote for young adults in the 1990s, back when even I was probably more young than adult myself! Writing for the young, or the young at heart, is a risky business and I learned that teenagers are a notoriously demanding and honest audience. My intention when crafting these books was to create stories that would appeal to them; also that they would hopefully be enjoyed by more mature and experienced fellow travellers for whom they might rekindle memories of the first books they had read, those magical tales of mystery and adventure that every reader hoards in the treasure chest of their brain. So whether you are young or young at heart, I hope you will enjoy this ride into the twilight world of Calcutta in the 1930s, where the shadows of the night are thicker than blood. Never mind the number of candles on your birthday cake – for those in the know, it’s what lies beneath them that matters! Enjoy.
February 2011
Carlos Ruiz Zafón was born in Barcelona and is the author of six novels, including The Shadow of the Wind and The Angel’s Game, the fastest selling book in Spanish publishing history. His work has been translated into more than 35 languages and has sold over 15 million copies worldwide.
Also by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
The Shadow of the Wind
The Angel’s Game
The Prince of Mist
For MariCarmen
I’LL NEVER FORGET THE NIGHT IT SNOWED OVER Calcutta. The calendar at St Patrick’s Orphanage was inching towards the final days of May 1932, leaving behind one of the hottest months ever recorded in the city of palaces.
With each passing day we felt sadder and more fearful of the approaching summer, when we would all turn sixteen, for this would mean our separation and the end of the Chowbar Society, the secret club of seven members that had been our refuge during our years at the orphanage. We had grown up there with no other family than ourselves, with no other memories than the stories we told in the small hours round an open fire in the courtyard of an abandoned mansion – a large rambling ruin which stood on the corner of Cotton Street and Brabourne Road and which we’d christened the Midnight Palace. At the time, I didn’t know I would never again see the streets of my childhood, the city whose spell has haunted me to this day.
I have never returned to Calcutta, but I have always been true to the promise we all made to ourselves on the banks of the Hooghly River: the promise never to forget what we had witnessed. Time has taught me to treasure the memory of those days and to preserve the letters I received from the accursed city, for they keep the flame of my memories alive. It was through those letters that I found out our palace had been demolished and an office building erected over its ashes, and that Mr Thomas Carter, the head of St Patrick’s, had passed away after spending the last years of his life in darkness, following the fire that closed his eyes for ever.
As the years went by, I heard about the gradual disappearance of all the sites that had formed the backdrop to our lives. The fury of a city that seemed to be devouring itself and the deceptive passage of time eventually erased all trace of the Chowbar Society and its members; at which point, I began to fear that this story might be lost for ever for want of a narrator. The vagaries of fate have chosen me, the person least suited to the task, to tell the tale and unveil the secret that both bonded and separated us so many years ago in the old railway station of Jheeter’s Gate. I would have preferred someone else to have been in charge of rescuing this story, but once again life has taught me that my role is to be a witness, not the leading actor.
All these years I’ve kept the few letters sent to me by Roshan, guarding them closely because they shed