Jorge Aldaya

Jorge Aldaya is the son of Don Ricardo Aldaya and the brother of Penelope, whose relationship with Julian Carax becomes the secret around which much of Jorge’s life turns. At San Gabriel’s school he belongs to Julian’s circle, alongside Miquel Moliner and Fernando Ramos, but his family’s wealth and his father’s control set him apart. He moves from a schoolboy caught between family authority and friendship to the sole person who can explain why Don Ricardo’s fury over Julian and Penelope exceeds the apparent offense—and, ultimately, to a tool in Fumero’s scheme against Julian.

Family and School

Don Ricardo’s household is governed by surveillance and status. Jacinta Coronado, who raised Jorge and Penelope, sometimes came to San Gabriel’s to collect Jorge because his father required the children to be watched by someone from the household. Her devotion to both siblings, especially Penelope, offered a gentler presence within the family’s strict arrangements. Miquel remembered Jacinta as kind and generous: she brought food for him and Julian, assuming that their modest backgrounds meant they might go hungry, even though Miquel’s father was a cook. Years later, Jacinta still spoke of Penelope and lived alone in the Santa Lucia hospice, which Miquel sometimes visited.

In April 1918, Don Ricardo arranged a lavish birthday celebration for Jorge, who was about to turn eighteen. The party filled the Aldaya home and gardens with lanterns, pennants, and stalls, although Jorge did not want the celebration and his father planned to be absent, ostensibly on business. Among the invited schoolboys was Francisco Javier Fumero, included at Julian’s suggestion. Miquel warned that the caretaker’s son might feel out of place amid such display. Fumero declined, but his mother, Dona Yvonne, saw the invitation as a chance for the family to enter high society and bought him a sailor suit. When she brought him to the mansion, a misunderstanding with the servants ended in her and her son being turned away.

From her bedroom window, Jacinta saw Fumero stop as he left. He had caught sight of Julian and Penelope kissing by the library window. The next day, he returned to school carrying his father’s gun. The boys’ laughter at his sailor suit stopped when they saw the weapon. Fumero fired toward Julian; Miquel tackled him and wrenched the gun away before the second shot could hit Julian. The other boys assumed Fumero had meant to take revenge on Jorge for the humiliation at the mansion. Miquel later told Julian that he had saved his life. The caretakers were driven from their home, and Fumero was sent to a remote reformatory school in the Pyrenees after Don Ricardo intervened on his behalf.

The Secret and Julian’s Departure

As their final year at San Gabriel’s came to an end, the young men faced sharply different futures. Jorge knew his father intended to send him to England to study; Miquel expected to attend Barcelona University, and Fernando was considering the seminary of the Society of Jesus. Julian, by contrast, could imagine only a future near Penelope. Don Ricardo was arranging a position for him in the family firm, while Julian’s father, the hatter, had secretly planned to send him into military service. Julian knew nothing of these plans and pressed for more time with Penelope, increasing the danger of discovery. Jacinta repeatedly covered for the lovers.

In 1919, Penelope’s mother discovered the relationship. Don Ricardo confined Penelope to Jacinta’s former room, dismissed Jacinta, and forbade anyone in the household from visiting her. He also arranged for Julian to be expelled from San Gabriel’s and pressed the hatter to send him away to the army. Jorge was alarmed by the extremity of his father’s response, even allowing for the lovers’ transgression; he suspected that some further secret lay behind it.

Jorge told Miquel what had happened and made him promise not to reveal it. Miquel understood that if Julian learned Penelope was locked away and might be pregnant, he would not leave Barcelona; Miquel feared that staying would destroy him. So, when he met Julian at the Estacion de Francia to give him his ticket to Paris, he let Julian believe that Penelope might join him later. Miquel’s silence was an act of protection that also condemned Julian to uncertainty. After Julian disappeared, Don Ricardo blamed the hatter and threatened him, while the hatter suspected his wife, Sophie, of helping their son escape. Jorge alone recognized that Miquel had arranged the departure. He ended their friendship and threatened Miquel if he disclosed the secret Jorge had shared.

Exile, Disclosure, and Fumero’s Scheme

Although Jorge and Miquel’s friendship broke, the concealed story continued to shape their lives. In March 1932, after meeting Fumero at the Novedades Cafe, Jorge began to feel better and apologized for his conduct at school. He then told Fumero the full story. Fumero listened while weighing whether to kill him, but became especially interested in what Jorge’s account revealed about Julian. He already knew from the publishing house that Julian lived in Paris, though he lacked the address; Nuria Monfort was one of the few people who had it. Fumero had been following her, hoping to find a way to reach Julian.

Fumero later used Jorge’s knowledge and anger to arrange a confrontation. He told Jorge that Julian was to marry in three days and suggested that Jorge go to Paris and challenge him to a duel on the wedding day. He gave Jorge a weapon that he knew was faulty: the Paris police report would later describe it as incapable of doing what Jorge believed it could do, and Fumero expected it to explode. The plan relied on more than the weapon. Fumero instructed Jorge to tell Julian that Penelope’s earlier letter, which seemed to announce her marriage and ask Julian to forget her, had been forced from her by Jorge. He was to say that Penelope had remained in love with Julian and had been waiting for him. Fumero expected this revelation to draw Julian back to Barcelona in search of her, where he could be trapped.

Jorge’s role in the scheme grew from the same family history that had once made him Miquel’s confidant. He was both the person who knew why Don Ricardo’s reaction had been so extreme and the messenger Fumero could use to redirect Julian’s life. The duel was therefore designed not simply as a confrontation but as bait: Jorge’s account of Penelope would make Julian abandon his wedding and return to the place where the hidden truth waited.

Death and Narrative Significance

A letter from Irene Marceau reported that Julian had killed Jorge in a duel at Pere Lachaise cemetery. The report reached Miquel and Nuria on the day of Goded’s surrender, when Barcelona was entering a period of upheaval. An anonymous call had alerted the police before Jorge died; Julian had to flee Paris, pursued on suspicion of murder. Miquel and Nuria believed Fumero had made the call. They feared that Julian’s return would expose the truth about Penelope, and Miquel said they would ensure he did not discover it.

Jorge’s arc is marked by successive failures of protection. He cannot protect Penelope from Don Ricardo’s confinement, and his attempt to tell the truth reaches Julian only through Fumero’s manipulation. His school friendship with Miquel gives way to estrangement when he learns of the escape; later, his own confession to Fumero turns the past into a weapon. The narrative first presents Jorge as one of the privileged boys around Julian, then makes him the witness to the family secret and finally the instrument of a plot that depends on Julian’s grief and hope. His death at Pere Lachaise closes that chain of disclosures without resolving the concealment that Miquel and Nuria continue to maintain.