Daniel Senperre with Beatrice Aguilera

Daniel Sempere and Beatriz Aguilar’s relationship reaches a fragile turning point after their visit to the Aldaya mansion. Their closeness is real, but the parting is marked by withheld intimacy, unanswered expectations, and the uneasy presence of Beatriz’s family. When she then disappears from Daniel’s everyday life, his longing turns into anxious pursuit; even after grief and danger overwhelm him, he goes back to her home, needing to recover the good he associates with her.

Intimacy and an Uneasy Parting

As Daniel and Beatriz leave the mansion, they walk briskly away and do not slow down until they are a hundred yards from it. Daniel notices that his hand is still stained with ashes, while the darkness conceals the tears of terror on his cheeks. The scene binds their intimacy to what they have just endured: they are together, but their escape has left Daniel frightened and visibly marked by the mansion.

They take a solitary taxi from Plaza Nunez de Arce, driving down Calle Balmes toward Consejo de Ciento in near silence. Beatriz holds Daniel’s hand, a gesture of closeness that seems to promise reassurance. Yet when he leans over to kiss her, she does not open her lips. Daniel asks when he will see her again; Beatriz says she will call the next day or the day after. Her promise offers a near-future point of contact, but the restrained kiss makes clear that the moment is not uncomplicated or wholly secure.

At the corner of Muntaner and Diputacion, Daniel asks the driver to stop and offers to accompany Beatriz to her front door. She refuses. She walks away without allowing another kiss or even a brush of the hand, then breaks into a run while Daniel watches from the taxi. The movement pulls them apart just after their journey together: what began with Beatriz holding his hand ends with her refusing further touch and leaving him behind.

The Aguilar Home and the Promise of a Call

The lights are on in the Aguilars’ apartment, and Daniel sees his childhood friend Tomas watching from his bedroom window. The window carries a history of shared afternoons spent chatting or playing chess, but the familiar setting has become a scene of cold scrutiny. Daniel waves and forces a smile; Tomas does not return the greeting. He remains fixed at the window, gazing at Daniel coldly, then moves away and leaves the window dark. Daniel’s thought that Tomas had been waiting for them gives the encounter the force of an unspoken confrontation, even though neither friend speaks.

Beatriz’s promise to call provides Daniel with a reason to wait, but also leaves the next step in her hands. She has told him he can reach her either at home or at the bookshop, using the same number, and Daniel acknowledges that he has it. The practical assurance contrasts with the emotional uncertainty of their departure: they have a way to contact each other, but no certainty that Beatriz will use it.

Silence, Waiting, and Fear

Daniel returns to the Aguilar home after dinner the next day, ostensibly to stretch his legs. He stops across the street and watches the apartment windows for about half an hour, sheltering from the icy wind in a doorway. He sees the silhouettes of Señor Aguilar and his wife passing through the rooms, but not Beatriz. Daniel recognizes the undignified, uncertain nature of his vigil, yet cannot make himself leave without looking for her.

The call never comes—not the next day, nor the day after, nor during the whole week. Daniel experiences that week as the longest and last of his life. The narration then makes the danger explicit: he says he will be dead in seven days’ time. The juxtaposition turns Beatriz’s silence into more than a private disappointment. Daniel’s waiting unfolds against a rapidly approaching crisis, so the hope attached to her promised call exists beside an impending threat to his life.

Return to Beatriz and the Unresolved Bond

After learning that Nuria Monfort has been murdered, Daniel walks through freezing rain with her lifeless body on his mind. A passer-by pulls him out of the path of a bus; only afterward does Daniel recognize his rescuer as Officer Palacios, who watches him across the traffic and then disappears from sight. Still shaken by grief and the near collision, Daniel sets off for Beatriz’s home, no longer able to wait. He needs to recall what little good remains in him and what Beatriz has given him. His return is therefore both a search for her and an attempt to recover a sense of emotional sustenance.

Daniel arrives soaked to the skin and knocks on the Aguilars’ door, bracing himself for Señor Aguilar to break his legs and smash his face. The household answers through Cecilia, one of its maids, who recognizes Daniel’s presence as unusual: lately, she associates him with Tomas rather than with Beatriz. When Daniel asks whether Beatriz is there, Cecilia says that Miss Beatriz is not. Asked whether she has gone out, Cecilia nods. The brief exchange gives Daniel no explanation for Beatriz’s absence and does not tell him when he will see her again. Their connection remains defined by the contrast between the closeness of the taxi ride and Daniel’s solitary efforts to find her: a hand held, a kiss refused, a promise to call, and a silence that drives him back to her door.