The Shadow of the Wind: City of Shadows: Chapter 36 Summary & Analysis

For the next days, Daniel loafs around the city hoping for news of Bea. One day he visits her university and questions the students, who say she hasn’t come to class in several days.

Finally Daniel calls Bea, even though it’s dangerous to phone the Aguilar home. Mr. Aguilar answers the phone and swears that he’s going to “beat your brains out” and that Bea will have to “pay for what you’ve done.”

Daniel feels guilty for not having protected Bea better. He feels that he has always let others take the fall for him, as when he watched while Fumero beat up Fermín. On his way home, he realizes the same police officer who had restrained him during Fermín’s beating is now following him again.

In the evening, without telling Mr. Sempere, Daniel and Fermín walk to a café, immediately noticing that a policeman is following them. At the café, Fermín bribes the waiter to tell the policeman that Inspector Fumero has urgently requested his presence, and the man leaves immediately.

Fermín tells Daniel that he met Fumero when the inspector was working for the anarchists and Fermín for the government, right before the Civil War. Then, Fermín was working for the party in charge, but after Barcelona fell to the Fascists, Fermín was branded a criminal and arrested. Fumero tortured him with a welding torch until he informed on his superiors, and Fermín feels guilty about their deaths to this day.

Daniel comforts Fermín and tells him he shouldn’t feel guilty about informing under such terrible circumstances, and Fermín says he credits the Semperes with turning around his life.