The Infatuations (19 page)

Then there was this other man, whose face I wanted to see, who was the reason I was prepared to emerge from the bedroom half-naked, before he left and I lost sight of him for ever. He might prove to be the far more dangerous of the two and might not be at all amused to see me or for me to preserve an image of him for ever afterwards; with him I might really be exposing myself to danger and might read in his eyes the following words: ‘I won’t forget your face; I can easily find out your name and where you live.’ He might be tempted to get rid of me.

But I had to hurry, I could hesitate no longer, and so I put on my bra and my shoes – I had taken these off again, rubbing the heels against the bottom end of the bed, where they had fallen to the floor just before I fell asleep. The bra was enough, I might have put it on anyway, even if there hadn’t been an intruder, aware that it would be
more flattering once I was standing up and in movement: even to Díaz-Varela, who had just seen me with nothing on. It was a size smaller than I normally wear, a very old trick which always works on romantic dates, it gives a bit of uplift to your breasts, makes them look fuller, not that I’ve ever had any problems with mine, so far anyway. It’s a small enticement and never fails, when you go on a date with a preconceived idea of what that date will involve, along with other less predictable things. The bra might even make me look more striking – well, more attractive perhaps – in the stranger’s eyes, but it also helped me feel more protected, less embarrassed.

I prepared to open the door, I had already put my shoes on, not worrying if the heels made a noise on the wooden floor, it was a way of warning them, if they were listening acutely enough and not too absorbed in their own problems. I had to watch my expression, which should be one of complete surprise when I saw that man Ruibérriz, but I hadn’t yet decided what my initial response should be, I would probably turn on my heel in alarm and rush back into the bedroom and not reappear until I had put on the slightly, or sufficiently, low-cut V-neck sweater I had chosen to wear that day. And I would probably cover my bust with my hands, or would that seem overly modest? It’s never easy to put yourself in a non-existent situation, I can’t understand how so many people spend their whole life pretending, because it’s impossible to keep every factor in mind, down to the last, unreal detail, when there are no details and they have all been made up.

I took a deep breath and opened the door, ready to play my part, and I knew then that I was already blushing, even before Ruibérriz had entered my field of vision, because I knew he was about to see me in a bra and tight skirt and I found it embarrassing to appear like that before a stranger who had already made the worst possible impression on me. Perhaps all that heat came, in part, from what I had just overheard, from the mixture of indignation and horror that my encircling sense of incredulity did nothing to diminish; I was, at any rate, extremely upset and troubled, filled by confused feelings and thoughts.

The two men were standing up and both of them immediately glanced round, they obviously hadn’t heard me putting on my shoes or anything. In Díaz-Varela’s eyes I noted an immediate coldness or mistrust, censure and even severity. In Ruibérriz’s I saw only surprise and a flicker of male appreciation, which is easy enough to spot and which he doubtless made no effort to conceal, for some men’s eyes are very quick to make such evaluations, a reflex action they can’t avoid, they’re even capable of ogling the bare thighs of a woman who has been involved in a car accident and is still lying, all bloody, on the road, or of staring at the hint of cleavage revealed by the woman who crouches down to help them if they happen to be the injured party, it’s beyond their will to control or perhaps it has nothing to do with
will at all, it’s a way of being in the world that will last until the day they die, and before closing their eyes for ever, their gaze will linger appreciatively on the nurse’s knee, even if she’s wearing lumpy white tights.

Instinctively, and feeling genuinely embarrassed, I covered myself with my hands, but what I didn’t do was turn on my heel and disappear at once, because I felt that I should say something, give voice to my embarrassment and shock. This proved less spontaneous.

‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ I said to Díaz-Varela, ‘I didn’t know anyone was here. Forgive me, I’ll go and put something on.’

‘It’s all right, I was just leaving,’ said Ruibérriz, holding out his hand to me.

‘Ruibérriz, a friend,’ Díaz-Varela said, introducing me in stark, awkward fashion: ‘This is María.’ Like Luisa, he failed to give my surname, but he possibly did so consciously, to provide me with a minimum of protection.

‘Ruibérriz de Torres,’ added the introducee, ‘delighted to meet you.’ He was clearly keen to highlight that ‘de’ with its hypothetically noble connotations, and continued to hold out his hand.

‘Pleased to meet you,’ I said, rapidly shaking his hand – his eyes flew straight to the one breast left momentarily uncovered – then hurried back into the bedroom, leaving the door open to make it clear that I intended rejoining them, the visitor would hardly leave without saying goodbye to someone he could still see. I picked up my sweater, put it on – aware that his gaze was fixed on my figure, as I stood, sideways on to him, to get dressed – and then returned to the living room. Ruibérriz de Torres was wearing a scarf around his neck – a mere adornment, he had not perhaps removed it all the time he had been there – and draped over his shoulders was the famous leather coat, which hung about him like a cape, in vaguely theatrical, carnivalesque
fashion. It was long and black, like the coats worn by members of the SS or perhaps by the Gestapo in films about the Nazis, he was the kind of man who preferred the quick and easy route to attracting attention, even at the risk of causing revulsion, and now, if he did as Díaz-Varela said, he would have to renounce his overcoat. My first thought was: ‘How could Díaz-Varela have placed his trust in someone who was so visibly a rogue?’ It was written all over his face and physique, his mannerisms and his manner, a single glance was all it took to detect his essential self. He was over fifty, and yet everything about him oozed youthfulness: his attractive hair combed back so that it formed a wave on either side of his slightly broad, bulbous, but entirely orthodox forehead, with streaks or blocks of grey hair, the colour of quicksilver, that failed to make him look any more respectable because they looked artificial, as if he’d had highlights put in; his athletic trunk, slightly convex as tends to be the case with those who try, at all costs, to avoid acquiring a belly and so take pains to cultivate their pectorals instead; his broad smile that revealed flashing teeth; his upper lip that folded back to reveal its moist inside, thus emphasizing his overwhelmingly salacious nature. He had a straight, pointed nose with a very prominent central bone, indeed, he looked more like a citizen of Rome than of Madrid and reminded me of that actor, Vittorio Gassman, not in his noble old age, but when he used to play crooks. Yes, it was obvious to anyone that he was an amiable fraud. He folded his arms so that each hand rested on the opposite biceps muscle – he tensed them briefly, a purely reflex action – as if he were stroking or measuring them, as if he wanted to draw attention to them even though they were now covered by his overcoat, a sterile gesture. I could easily imagine him in a T-shirt, and even wearing high boots, a cheap imitation of a frustrated polo player who had never been allowed on a horse. Yes, it was strange that Díaz-Varela
should have chosen him as his accomplice in such a secret and delicate enterprise, an enterprise that soils all those involved: that of causing someone’s death, one ‘who should have died hereafter’, perhaps tomorrow or if not tomorrow then the day after, but not now. Therein lies the problem, because we all die, and in the end, it makes little difference – deep down – if you cause someone’s turn to come earlier than expected by murdering them, the problem lies in when, but who knows which is the right or appropriate time, what does ‘hereafter’ or ‘at some point from now on’ mean, when ‘now’ is, by its very nature, always changing, what does ‘at another time’ mean if there is only one continuous, indivisible time that is eternally snapping at our heels, impatient and aimless, stumbling on as if powerless to stop and as if time itself were ignorant of its purpose. And why do things happen when they happen, why this date and not the previous day or the next, what is so special or decisive about this moment, what marks it out and who chooses it, and how can anyone say what Macbeth went on to say – I had looked it up after Díaz-Varela had quoted the lines to me – because what he goes on to say is this: ‘There would have been a time for such a word,’ that is, for the fact or phrase that he has just heard from the lips of his attendant Seyton, the bringer of relief or of misfortune: ‘The queen, my lord, is dead.’ As is so often the case, Shakespeare’s editors are unable to agree on the meaning of Macbeth’s famously ambiguous and mysterious lines. What did he mean by ‘hereafter’? ‘She could have died at a more appropriate time’? ‘She could have chosen a better moment, because this doesn’t suit me at all’? Perhaps ‘a more opportune, peaceful time, when she could have been properly honoured, when I could have stopped and mourned as I should the loss of the woman who shared so much with me, ambition and murder, hope and power and fear’? Macbeth has a moment, that’s all, before he launches into his ten
most famous lines, into the extraordinary soliloquy that so many people round the world have learned by heart and which begins: ‘Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow …’ And when he has finished – although who knows if he has finished speaking or if he would have added something more had he not been interrupted – the messenger arrives demanding his attention, for he brings Macbeth the terrible and supernatural news that Birnam Wood is on the move and advancing on the high hill of Dunsinane, where he is encamped, and this means that he will be defeated. And if he is defeated, he will be killed, and once he is dead, they will cut off his head and display it like a trophy, sightless and separated from the body that still supports it now, while he is speaking. ‘She should have died later on, when I wasn’t alive to hear the news, or to see or to dream anything; when I was no longer in time and incapable, therefore, of understanding.’

Contrary to how I had felt when I was listening to them without seeing them, when Ruibérriz de Torres’s face was still unknown to me, I did not feel afraid of the two men during the brief time I spent in their company, even though the new arrival’s features and manners were hardly reassuring. Everything about him revealed him to be an utter rogue, and yet he was not in the least sinister; he was doubtless capable of a thousand minor despicable deeds, which might lead him to commit worse things from time to time, as if drawn briefly into a neighbouring country, rather as one might make a short incursion into alien territory, an experience that would horrify him if repeated on a daily basis. The two men were clearly not on friendly or harmonious terms, and it seemed to me that far from making them a potentially murderous duo, the presence of one neutralized the dangerousness of the other, and neither of them, I felt, would dare to reveal his suspicions or interrogate me or do anything to me with a witness present, even if that witness was their accomplice in planning a murder. It was as if they had come together purely by chance and only temporarily for that one act, they were certainly not a permanent partnership nor did they have any longer-term plans, as though they had joined forces exclusively to carry out that one now completed enterprise and to face any likely consequences, an alliance of convenience, possibly unwished for by both parties, and in which
Ruibérriz had become involved perhaps to earn a little money or to pay off debts, and Díaz-Varela because he knew no other – more crooked – crook, and so had no alternative but to entrust himself to a wide boy. ‘Besides, why
would
you call me, we haven’t spoken in ages. This had better be important,’ the former had said to the latter when the latter had told him off for not having his mobile phone switched on. They weren’t usually in contact, the intimacy that allowed them to reproach each other came solely from their shared secret or shared guilt, if they felt any guilt, although I didn’t have that impression at all, they had sounded completely devoid of scruples. People feel bound to each other when they commit a crime together, when they conspire or plot, even more so when they put a plan into action. And that does breed a kind of instant overfamiliarity, because the plotters have taken off their masks and can no longer pretend to their fellows that they are not what they are nor that they would never do what they have, in fact, done. They are bound together by that mutual knowledge, rather as clandestine lovers are and even those lovers who are not clandestine and have no need to be, but who opt for discretion, those who believe that their private lives are not the business of the rest of the world, and that there is no reason to tell the world about every kiss and every embrace, as was the case with Díaz-Varela and me, for we kept silent about our affair, indeed, that man Ruibérriz was the first to know anything about it. Every criminal knows what his accomplice is capable of and knows that his accomplice knows exactly the same about him. Every lover knows that the other person has a weak point and that in her presence he can no longer pretend that he doesn’t find her physically alluring, that he finds her repulsive or is indifferent to her, he can no longer pretend that he scorns or rejects her, not at least in the field of carnal relations, a deeply prosaic field in which, much to women’s regret,
most men tend to get stuck for far too long – until they get used to us and grow sentimental. Indeed, we’re lucky if our encounters with them have a slightly humorous edge, which is often a first step towards softening even the surliest of men.

If we are irritated by the overfamiliarity of, say, a stranger or an acquaintance after he has spent a brief time in our bed – or we in his bed, it makes no difference – how much more galling must it be between partners in crime, a relationship that must engender a complete lack of respect, especially if the malefactors in question are mere amateurs, ordinary individuals who, just a few days before they had conceived their own vile deeds and doubtless after they had carried them out as well, would have been horrified to hear an account of those deeds as committed by others. The kind of person who, after bringing about a murder or even ordering it, will still think smugly: ‘I’m not a murderer, I certainly don’t consider myself to be one. It’s just that things happen and occasionally one has to intervene at a certain point, it makes no difference if it’s halfway through, at the end or at the beginning, you can’t have one without the other. There are always many factors involved and one factor alone cannot be the cause. Ruibérriz could have refused, as could the man he dispatched to poison the
gorrilla
’s mind. The
gorrilla
could have failed to answer the calls to the mobile phone he had in his possession for a time, we gave it to him, we made the calls and managed to convince him that Miguel was the person responsible for prostituting his daughters; he could have ignored those malicious lies or chosen the wrong person to attack and instead stabbed the chauffeur sixteen times, five times fatally – after all, only a few days before, the man had punched the chauffeur. Miguel might have chosen not to drive the car on his birthday and then nothing would have happened, not on that day or perhaps on any other, the necessary elements might never have come
together … The tramp might not have had a knife, the one I ordered to be bought for him, it opens so quickly … What responsibility do I bear for that cluster of coincidences, any plans one draws up are only ever attempts and experiments, cards to be turned over one by one, and, more often than not, the card you want doesn’t appear, doesn’t match. The only thing you can be found guilty of is picking up a weapon and actually using it yourself. Everything else is pure contingency, things that one imagines – a bishop in chess making a diagonal move, a knight jumping over another piece – things that one desires, fears, instigates, ideas that one toys with and fantasizes about, and which, sometimes, actually happen. And if they do, they happen even if you don’t want them to or don’t happen even if you yearn for them to happen, at any rate, little depends on us, no intrigue, however carefully woven, is safe from a thread coming loose. It’s like firing an arrow up into the sky in the middle of a field: the normal thing, once the arrow begins its descent, is for the arrow to fall straight to earth, without deviating, without striking or wounding anyone. Or only, perhaps, the archer.’