Macedonia

Merceditas is a neighbor of the Sempere family whose small acts of kindness and plainspoken concern make her a recurring moral presence in the bookshop. She brings the Semperes three apples and later condemns the violence inflicted on Don Federico, insisting that his harmless way of dressing and performing is no excuse for cruelty.

Visits to the Bookshop

On her way home from shopping at Boqueria Market, Merceditas pauses at the shop window and comes in to greet Sempere. Her visit is practical as well as social: she opens a paper bag and gives the family three shiny apples. The exchange suggests an easy familiarity with the household, while her greeting and attention are directed particularly toward Sempere.

The visit also reveals the bookshop’s everyday social atmosphere. Daniel senses that his father likes Merceditas, though his reserved manners keep him from showing it openly. Fermín watches her with exaggerated interest, swaying to the music and licking his lips; Merceditas, for her part, appears to resent him as the usurper who has taken a place she once hoped to occupy in the shop. Her warmth toward the family therefore coexists with a clear dislike of its newest member.

A Plainspoken Neighbor

Merceditas frames her gift as a gesture especially suited to the intellectuals who work in the shop, teasingly invoking Isaac Newton and his theory of gravity. Fermín corrects her reference, turning the moment into one of the pair’s characteristic exchanges. Her joking familiarity helps establish her as comfortable among the shop’s regulars, even when she is not impressed by Fermín.

She also occupies a distinct position in the group’s banter: when Fermín makes a veiled reference to Daniel’s meeting with Bea, Daniel refuses to give him the satisfaction of an answer, while Merceditas’s visits bring the scene back to the neighborhood’s ordinary rhythms. Her brief appearances connect the bookshop to daily life beyond its door, including shopping, work, and the relationships formed through repeated visits.

Defense of Don Federico

After a police van leaves Don Federico at his doorstep, bloodied and badly beaten, Merceditas speaks up from the bookshop doorway, keeping her distance from Fermín’s wandering hands. She describes Don Federico as kind and minding his own business, and rejects the idea that his habit of dressing up and singing in public could justify what was done to him. Her response is immediate and concrete: she focuses on the injured man and on the attackers’ cruelty rather than treating the assault as gossip or spectacle.

Her disagreement with Fermín clarifies the force of her moral outlook. Fermín distinguishes deliberate evil from thoughtless, self-righteous brutality; Merceditas instead calls for Christian charity and argues that people who attend mass fail to heed Christ’s teaching. The two reach the same condemnation of the violence by different routes, and her appeal to religious conduct makes the hypocrisy of the attackers’ presumed respectability part of the accusation.

Work and Departure

Merceditas does not remain to debate the matter indefinitely. She says that she has more than one job to do and that time is short, then leaves the shop with her back straight and her high heels striking the street. The departure gives her concern a practical counterweight: she is compassionate, but her time and labor are limited, and she returns to the demands of her own day.

Her scenes are brief, yet they place ordinary generosity beside public cruelty. The apples she brings and her defense of Don Federico are modest acts, not grand interventions; together they make her a steady presence in the neighborhood, attentive to both the people around her and the dignity they are denied.