The Book of Evidence (3 page)

We presided a m o n g this rabble, D a p h n e and I, with a kind of grand detachment, like an exiled king and queen waiting daily for w o r d of the counter-rebellion and the sum m o o s from the palace to return. People in general, I noticed it, were a little afraid of us, n o w and again I detected it in their eyes, a worried, placatory, d o g g i e sort 10

of l o o k , or else a resentful glare, furtive and sullen. I have p o n d e r e d this p h e n o m e n o n , it strikes me as significant.

W h a t w a s it in us — or rather, what w a s it
about
us — that impressed t h e m ? O h , we are large, well-made, I am h a n d s o m e , D a p h n e is beautiful, but that cannot have been the w h o l e of it. N o , after m u c h t h o u g h t the conclusion I have c o m e to is this, that they i m a g i n e d they recognised in us a coherence and wholeness, an essential authenticity, which they lacked, and of which they felt they w e r e not entirely w o r t h y . We w e r e — well, yes, we w e r e heroes.

I t h o u g h t all this ridiculous, of course. N o , wait, I am under oath here, I m u s t tell the truth. I enjoyed it. I enjoyed sitting at ease in the sun, with my resplendent, disreputable consort at my side, quietly receiving the tribute of our m o t l e y court. T h e r e w a s a special, faint little smile I had, calm, tolerant, with just the tiniest touch of p o o r fools w h o prattled, cavorting before us in cap and bells, d o i n g their pathetic tricks and m a d l y laughing. I l o o k e d in their eyes and saw m y s e l f ennobled there, and so could forget for a m o m e n t w h a t I was, a paltry, shivering thing, just like them, full of l o n g i n g and loathing, solitary, afraid, racked by doubts, and d y i n g .

T h a t w a s h o w I g o t into the hands of crooks: I allowed m y s e l f to be lulled into believing I w a s inviolable. I do not seek, my lord, to excuse my actions, only to explain them.

T h a t life, drifting f r o m island to island, encouraged illusions. T h e sun, the salt air, leached the significance out of things, so that they lost their true w e i g h t . My instincts, the instincts of o u r tribe, those coiled springs tempered in the dark forests of the north, went slack d o w n there, y o u r h o n o u r , really, they did. H o w could anything be dangerous, be wicked* in such tender, blue, watercolour weather? A n d then, b a d things are always things that take 11

place elsewhere, and bad people are never the people that one knows. T h e American, for instance, seemed no worse than any of the others a m o n g that yearns crowd. In fact, he seemed to me no worse than I was myself — I mean, than I imagined myself to be, for this, of course, was before 1

discovered what things I was capable of.

I refer to Mm as the American because I did not know* or cannot remember, his name, but 1 am not sure that he was American at alL He spoke with a twang that might have been learned from the pictures, and he had a way of looking about him with narrowed eyes while lie talked which reminded me of some film star or other. I could not take him seriously. I did a splendid impression of him — I have always 'been a g o o d mimic — which made people laugh out loud in surprise and recognition. At first I thought fie was quite a young man, but Daphne smiled arid asked had I looked at his hands. (She noticed such things.) He was lean and muscular, with a hatchet face and boyish, close-cropped hair. He went in for tight jeans and high-heeled boots and leather belts with huge buckles.

There was a definite touch of the cowpoke about Mm. I shall call him, let me see, 1 shall call him — Randolph. It was Daphne Jne was after. I watched Mm sidle up, hands stuck in his tight pockets, and start to sniff around her, at once cocksure and edgy, like so many others before Mm, his longing, like theirs, evident in a certain strained wMteness between the eyes. Me lie treated with watchful affability, addressing me as friend, and even — do I imagine it? — as
pardner.
1 remember the first time lie sat himself down at our table^ twining his spidery legs around the chair and leaning forward on an elbow. I expected him to fetch out a tobacco pouch and roil himself a smoke with one hand.

12

T h e waiter, Paco, or Pablo, a y o u n g m a n with hot eyes and aristocratic pretensions, m a d e a mistake and brought us the w r o n g drinks, and R a n d o l p h seized the opportunity to savage him. T h e poor boy stood there, his shoulders b o w e d under the lashes of invective, and was what he had always been, a peasants son. W h e n he had stumbled away, R a n d o l p h looked at D a p h n e and grinned, showing a side r o w of long, fulvous teeth, and I thought of a hound sitting back p r o u d as punch after delivering a dead rat at its mistress's feet. G o d d a m n e d spies, he said carelessly, and m a d e a spitting noise out of the side of his mouth. I j u m p e d up and seized the edge of the table and overturned it, pitching the drinks into his lap, and shouted at him to get up and reach for it, y o u sonofabitch! N o , no, of course I didn't. M u c h as I might have liked to d u m p a table full of broken glass into his ludicrously overstuffed crotch, that was not the w a y S did things, not in those days. Besides, I had enjoyed as m u c h as anyone seeing Pablo or Paco get his comeuppance, the twerp, with his soulful glances and his delicate hands and that horrible, pubic moustache.

R a n d o l p h liked to give the impression that he was a very dangerous character. He spoke of dark deeds perpetrated in a far-off country which he called Stateside. I encouraged these tales of derring-do, secretly delighting in the aw-shucks, *tweren*t~nuthin' w a y he told them. There was something wonderfully ridiculous about it all, the braggart's sly glance and slyly modest inflexion, his air of euphoric self-regard, the w a y he opened like a flower under the w a r m t h of my silently nodding, awed response.

I have always derived satisfaction f r o m the little wickednesses of h u m a n beings. To treat a fool and a liar as if I esteemed h i m the soul of probity, to string him along in his poses and his fibs, that is a peculiar pleasure. He claimed he was a painter, until I put a f e w innocent 13

questions to h i m on the subject, then he suddenly b e c a m e a writer instead. In fact, as he confided to me o n e night in his cups, he m a d e his m o n e y by dealing in d o p e a m o n g the island's transient rich, I w a s shocked, of course, but I recognised a valuable piece of i n f o r m a t i o n , and later 9 w h e n —

B u t I am tired of this, let me get it o u t of the w a y . I asked h i m to lend me s o m e m o n e y . He refused. I r e m i n d e d h i m of that drunken night, and said I w a s sure the
guardia
w o u l d be interested to hear what he had told m e . He w a s shocked. H e t h o u g h t a b o u t it. H e didn*t have the kind o f d o u g h I w a s asking for, he said, he w o u l d h a v e to get it for m e s o m e w h e r e , m a y b e f r o m s o m e p e o p l e that h e k n e w .

A n d he c h e w e d his lip. I said that w o u l d be all right, I didn't m i n d w h e r e it c a m e f r o m . I w a s a m u s e d , and rather pleased with myself, playing at being a blackmailer. I had not really expected h i m to take me seriously, but it seemed I had underestimated his cravenness. He p r o d u c e d the cash, and for a l e w w e e k s D a p h n e and I had a high old time, and everything w a s g r a n d except for R a n d o l p h d o g g i n g my steps wherever I went. He w a s distressingly literal-m i n d e d in his interpretation of w o r d s such as
lend
and
repay
. H a d n ' t I kept his g r u b b y little secret, I said, was that not a fair return? T h e s e people, he said, with an awful9

twitching attempt at a grin, these p e o p l e didn't fool around. I said I w a s glad to hear it, o n e w o u l d n ' t w a n t to think o n e had been dealing, even at second-hand, with the merely frivolous. T h e n h e threatened t o g i v e t h e m m y n a m e . 1 laughed in his face and w a l k e d a w a y . I still could not take any of it seriously. A f e w days later a small p a c k a g e w r a p p e d in b r o w n paper arrived, addressed to me in a semi-literate hand. D a p h n e m a d e the mistake of o p e n i n g it. Inside w a s a t o b a c c o tin — B a l k a n Sobranie, lending an o d d l y c o s m o p o l i t a n touch — lined with cotton w o o l , in w h i c h nestled a curiously w h o r l e d , pale, gristly 14

piece of m e a t crusted w i t h dried b l o o d . It took me a m o m e n t to identify it as a h u m a n ear. W h o e v e r h a d cut it o f f had d o n e a messy j o b , w i t h s o m e t h i n g like a breadknife, to j u d g e by the r a g g e d serration. Painful. f s u p p o s e that w a s the intention. I r e m e m b e r thinking: H o w appropriate, an ear, in this land of the toreador! Q u i t e droll, really.

I w e n t in search of R a n d o l p h . He w o r e a large lint p a d pressed to the left side of his head, held in place by a rakishly angled and none-too-clean b a n d a g e . H e n o longer m a d e m e think o f the W i l d W e s t . N o w , a s i f fate had decided to s u p p o r t his claim of b e i n g an artist, he b o r e a striking resemblance to p o o r , m a d Vincent in that self-portrait m a d e after he had disfigured himself for love.

W l i e n he s a w me I t h o u g h t he w a s g o i n g to w e e p , he l o o k e d so sorry f o r himself, and so indignant. Y o u deal w i t h t h e m yourself n o w , h e said, y o u o w e t h e m , not m e , I've paid, and he touched a h a n d g r i m l y to his b a n d a g e d head. T h e n he called me a vile n a m e and skulked o f f d o w n an a l l e y w a y . Despite the n o o n d a y sun a shiver passed across my b a c k , like a g r e y w i n d s w a r m i n g o v e r water. I tarried there for a m o m e n t , on that w h i t e c o m e r , m u s i n g .

An o l d m a n on a b u r r o saluted m e . N e a r b y a tinny churchbell w a s c l a n g i n g rapidly. W l i y , I asked myself, w h y am I living like this?

T h a t is a question w h i c h no d o u b t the court also w o u l d like answered. W i t h m y b a c k g r o u n d , m y education, m y —

yes — my culture, h o w c o u l d I live such a life, associate w i t h such people, get m y s e l f into such scrapes? T h e answer is — I d o n ' t k n o w the answer. Or I d o , and it is t o o large, t o o tangled, f o r me to a t t e m p t here. I used to believe, like e v e r y o n e else, that I w a s d e t e r m i n i n g the course of my 55

o w n life, according to my o w n decisions, but gradually, as I accumulated m o r e and m o r e past to look back on, 1

realised that I had done the things I did because I could do no other. Please, do not imagine, my lord, I hasten to say it, do not imagine that you detect here the insinuation of an apologia, or even of a defence. I wish to claim full responsibility for my actions — after all, they are the only things I can call my own. ~~ and I declare in advance that I shall accept without demur the verdict of the court. I am merely asking, with all respect, whether it is feasible to hold on to the principle of moral culpability once the notion of free will has been abandoned. It is, I grant you, a tricky one, the sort of thing we love to discuss in here of an evening, over our cocoa and our fags, when time hangs heavy.

As F v e said, I did not always think of my life as a prison in which all actions are determined according to a random pattern thrown d o w n by an unknown and insensate authority. Indeed, when I was y o u n g I saw myself as a masterbuilder w h o would one day assemble a marvellous edifice around myself, a kind of grand pavilion, airy and light, which would contain me utterly and yet wherein I would be free. L o o k , they would say, distinguishing this eminence f r o m afar, look h o w sound it is, h o w solid: it's him all right, yes, no doubt about it, the man himself.

Meantime, however, unhoused, I felt at once exposed and invisible. H o w shall I describe it, this sense of myself as something without weight, without moorings, a floating phantom? Other people seemed to have a density, a thereness, which I lacked. A m o n g them, these big, carefree creatures, I was like a child a m o n g adults. I watched them, wide-eyed, wondering at their calm assurance in the face of a baffling and preposterous world. D o n ' t mistake me, I was no wilting lily, I laughed and w h o o p e d and boasted with 16

the best of t h e m — only inside, in that g r i m , s h a d o w e d gallery I call my heart, I s t o o d uneasily, with a hand to my m o u t h , silent, envious, uncertain. T h e y u n d e r s t o o d matters, or accepted t h e m , at least. T h e y k n e w w h a t they t h o u g h t a b o u t things, they h a d opinions. T h e y t o o k the b r o a d v i e w , as if they
did
not realise that everything is infinitely divisible. T h e y talked of cause and effect, as if they believed it possible to isolate an event and hold it up to scrutiny in a pure, timeless space, outside the m a d swirl o f things. T h e y w o u l d speak o f w h o l e peoples a s i f they w e r e speaking of a single individual, while to speak even o f a n individual with any s h o w o f certainty seemed t o m e f o o l h a r d y . O h , they k n e w n o b o u n d s .