La carta dentro del libro (The letter inside the book): free B1 Spanish story
Level B1 (Intermediate) · Mystery · about 2 minutes
A bookseller finds an old love letter and goes looking for its owner.
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The story in Spanish
Valeria trabaja en una librería de segunda mano en el centro de la ciudad. Le encanta el olor del papel viejo y las notas que la gente deja en los márgenes.
Una tarde de lluvia, mientras ordenaba una caja de libros, encontró un sobre amarillo entre las páginas de un libro de poemas. El sobre no estaba cerrado. Dentro había una carta escrita a mano y una foto en blanco y negro de dos jóvenes frente al mar.
La carta decía: «Si algún día vuelves, te espero en el muelle, como siempre. Elena». No tenía fecha. Valeria miró la primera página del libro y vio un nombre y una dirección: Tomás Ruiz, calle de los Naranjos, número doce.
Al día siguiente, Valeria tomó el autobús hasta esa calle. Un señor mayor abrió la puerta despacio. Cuando vio la foto, se quedó en silencio y sus ojos se llenaron de lágrimas. —Pensé que nunca la iba a ver otra vez —dijo. Luego, sacó su celular y buscó un número. —Tal vez todavía no es tarde.
Una semana después, Valeria recibió un mensaje de un número desconocido. Era una foto de un señor mayor y una señora de pelo blanco, sentados juntos en el muelle. Debajo, Tomás había escrito: «Llegué a tiempo». Valeria la miró durante un largo rato, con una sonrisa. Desde entonces, abre cada libro usado con más cuidado, porque nunca se sabe qué historia espera entre sus páginas.
English translation
Valeria works in a used bookstore downtown. She loves the smell of old paper and the notes people leave in the margins.
One rainy afternoon, while she was sorting a box of books, she found a yellow envelope between the pages of a book of poems. The envelope wasn't sealed. Inside there was a handwritten letter and a black-and-white photo of two young people in front of the sea.
The letter said: “If you ever come back, I’ll be waiting for you at the pier, as always. Elena.” It had no date. Valeria looked at the first page of the book and saw a name and an address: Tomás Ruiz, 12 Naranjos Street.
The next day, Valeria took the bus to that street. An elderly man opened the door slowly. When he saw the photo, he fell silent and his eyes filled with tears. “I thought I would never see it again,” he said. Then he took out his phone and looked for a number. “Maybe it isn’t too late yet.”
A week later, Valeria got a message from an unknown number. It was a photo of an elderly man and a white-haired woman, sitting together on the pier. Underneath, Tomás had written: “I made it in time.” Valeria looked at it for a long while, smiling. Since then, she opens every used book more carefully, because you never know what story is waiting between its pages.
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