The Shadow of the Wind (The Cemetery of Forgotten Books, #1)

by Carlos Ruiz Zafón

When I stepped out of the main door, the bluish shadows of early morning still darkened the puddles left in the street by the night’s drizzle.

We were shielded by the evening light and that despondent silence that brings strangers together, and I felt daring enough to say anything that came to my head, even though it might be for the last time. “Do you love him, or don’t you?”

Nothing feeds forgetfulness better than war, Daniel. We all keep quiet and they try to convince us that what we’ve seen, what we’ve done, what we’ve learned about ourselves and about others, is an illusion, a passing nightmare. Wars have no memory, and nobody has the courage to understand them until there are no voices left to tell what happened, until the moment comes when we no longer recognize them and they return, with another face and another name, to devour what they left behind.