Fortuny

Fortuny is Julian Carax’s father, an aging hatter who spends his final years longing for news of his estranged son. Seen through Nuria’s recollections, he becomes less the ogre she once imagined than a lonely, confused man trying to recover a family past and waiting for Julian to come home.

Identity and Background

Fortuny once worked as a hatter, and he and Julian had worked together in the shop. By the time Nuria knew him well, however, he no longer worked downstairs: he said he lacked the hands, the sight, and the customers. His former trade remained part of how he remembered Julian, even as age and declining health narrowed his life.

His relationship with his son had been damaged by separation. When Fortuny asked Nuria to tell him what Julian had become, he admitted sadly that he did not really know him. He described their estrangement as life having separated them, a simple explanation that also conveyed how much of Julian’s life had passed beyond his reach.

Waiting for Julian

During the war, Fortuny encountered Nuria in the cathedral cloister and confided that he believed Julian was alive somewhere. He suspected that Julian could not get in touch, and connected that possibility with Fumero, whom he regarded as a cruel and dangerous man. Fortuny had also searched Barcelona’s bookshops for Julian’s novels, only to find them unobtainable. He had heard that someone was searching for the books and burning them, and suspected Fumero was responsible.

Nuria did not correct his suspicions. She told him that Julian had returned to Paris, was well, and still cared deeply for him, promising that he would come back when circumstances allowed. The reassurance was a lie, but it gave Fortuny the hope he was waiting for. Before they parted, Nuria promised to keep him and Sophie informed if she learned anything about Julian.

Nuria’s Friendship

Nuria had once pictured Fortuny as an ogre: resentful and despicable. Their meetings changed that impression. She saw instead a kind man, confused and unable to face the reality of his circumstances. He reminded her of her own father, who took refuge in books and shadows, and their shared hope for Julian drew her closer to him. She became Fortuny’s only friend and often visited him at his apartment on Ronda de San Antonio, without Julian’s knowledge.

The visits acquired a regular rhythm. Fortuny expected Nuria almost every Thursday and offered coffee, biscuits, and pastries that he scarcely touched. He reminisced about Julian’s childhood and their work together, showed her photographs, and took her to Julian’s room, which he kept immaculate, almost like a museum. There he brought out old notebooks and everyday objects, often repeating stories and showing the same things again without realizing he had already done so. In those rituals, he seemed to be reconstructing a past that had never existed as he remembered it.

Decline and Death

On one Thursday, Nuria met a doctor leaving Fortuny’s apartment. The doctor told her that Fortuny was very ill and had only months to live. The prognosis proved accurate: Fortuny died before the end of the war. He was found seated in his armchair, looking at old photographs of Sophie and Julian.

His final image gathers the attachments that shaped his last years: the son he had lost touch with, and the mother whose happiness, he believed, depended on hearing how Julian was. Fortuny’s death leaves his hope unanswered. Nuria’s kindness had eased his isolation, but the story he was waiting for—a reunion with his son—never came.